


Regaining The Fragments of Who We Once Were

by kayeherl



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Clintasha - Freeform, Don't worry, F/M, Flashbacks, I don't even know why I wrote it, I guess enjoy it while it lasts?, It will be SOO AU in like a month and it makes me sad, It's AU-ish, Kisses later on - Freeform, M/M, Mainly just little differences, Memory Loss, Nightmares, PTSD, Platonic as hell in the beginning, Stucky - Freeform, Super duper slow burn, Takes place after CATWS, The Peggy and Steve is very brief, There's smut I promise, angsty as hell, survivor's guilt, this is probably stupid
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-02 03:06:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 47,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6548155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayeherl/pseuds/kayeherl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers knows that Bucky is out there, and he makes it his personal mission to find him and bring him back, but what if getting his best friend back isn't as easy as he thought it would be?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello again, Lovelies! Sooo, I re-watched Captain America Winter Soldier and saw the slashy goodness contained within its beautiful actors and subtext and decided that I would go a bit nuts over Stucky and write a fanfic. Now, this is nothing groundbreaking, and there’s probably a few hundred (million) fanfics that have similar themes, so don’t expect anything extra-special, but I just want to write my take on Steve finding Bucky and recovering with him. 
> 
> And I know, in like a month, all this will become AU (so very AU that I can’t even,) but I just have to write this. So, I guess enjoy it until it becomes irrelevant?
> 
> So here it is. As always, I intend this to be a couple of chapters long, but it may go longer. Sigh, who knows anymore. I own nothing, and there will be smut later (Much later). So there you have it.
> 
> Anywho, please let me know what you think! Without further ado, here it is!
> 
> Kirk out

James Buchanan Barnes never came easily. Steve lived and breathed that statement as fact, and there was no exception to that fact after Bucky pulled Steve out of the river and disappeared without a single trace. The mere fact that he had disappeared so suddenly and leaving nothing behind only reaffirmed that statement Steve knew to be an absolute.

 

That was why, moments after waking in a hospital without explanations from the other Avengers as to his state of not being dead, he made it his personal mission to hunt his childhood friend down. No, not to kill him; everyone knew that Steve couldn’t do that, even if it had been a mission from the SHIELD organization that didn’t exist any longer. Even Steve didn’t bother concealing that fact.

 

That’s why, when Steve sidled up to Tony’s side one morning during a visit to Stark Tower,, and asked to use some of his “fancy equipment,” as Steve called it, no one was particularly shocked. Clint simply glanced up, blinked, and returned to staring at the orange he rolled around in his hands, and Bruce yawned. Natasha was the only one who kept her eyes on Steve, narrowed slightly and much too intense.

 

“I’m not sure if he can be found with my technology,” Tony replied. “The Winter Soldier is a master of appearing, creating destruction and disappearing without a single trace.” Steve winced at Tony’s lack of tact, but nodded and swallowed. A few weeks before, he would have crushed the man’s trachea for that statement.

 

“I would like to try anyway,” he said quietly, now. He could feel all pairs of eyes on his back, nearly burning holes through the t-shirt he had thrown on after returning from the hospital.

 

Tony cocked an eyebrow and downed the rest of his orange juice, which Steve had strong suspicions about the virginity of. “You didn’t even need to ask,” he said.

 

“It’s polite,” Steve said stiffly. Though they may have gotten over their initial hatred of each other for their vastly different viewpoints, they still had their differences and always would.

Tony waved it away and let out a sigh. “I’m surprised that you slept before you got started,” he noted.

 

So was Steve. After spending two weeks, three days and approximately eight hours in the hospital, he had felt insane with the inability to do anything. Bucky could be somewhere across the world by now, and the likelihood of them finding him was much lower than it had been only days ago. That’s what he would have done if he were smart, gotten away as quickly as he could and kept running. And Steve was very aware that Bucky was, indeed, very smart—exceptionally so—but he could be confused. He had been brainwashed multiple times and that had to do some crazy things to one’s head. God knows what else Hydra had done to his best friend.

 

Steve nodded his thanks to Tony and left without meeting anyone else’s gaze. They either thought that Steve walked away quicker than he actually did, or forgot that the serum had done something to his ears as well, because he heard Natasha say something about the probability of him actually finding Bucky, something about how low it was. Steve didn’t pay too close attention.

 

Steve found that his hands were shaking as he laid his hands on either side of a console somewhere on the tenth floor of Stark tower—practically the basement in this huge place—and no matter what he did, he couldn’t get them to stop. He stared blankly down at the screen for several moments, and found that he could see his reflection.

 

Steve still sometimes expected to see himself as the pre-serum version of himself. It didn’t matter how fast he could run or that he could knock someone out with a single punch. He still expected to be incapacitated by a cough that robbed him of his breath and hurt enough to make him wish that he was dead. He expected to get sick as the weather got cooler. He didn’t. Neither had happened since he had been changed into this foreign creature some seventy years ago.

 

Steve clenched his hands into tight fists— _ finally _ the shaking stopped—and took a deep breath. He most definitely did not pay attention to the way it shuddered on the way out.  _ Just get it over with, Rogers, _ he told himself. He couldn’t make his throat work, couldn’t make his fingers move.

Bucky. That was all that had consumed his thoughts when he had woken, not someplace that may have been heaven or perhaps hell with all of the bad things he had done throughout his entire existence, but in a hospital with his best friend as his savior— _ once again, Bucky was always his savior _ . He had thought of little else, remembering the way Bucky’s normally sparkling grey eyes looked at him blankly, not even the barest hint of recognition.

 

But there must have been some recognition. There  _ must have,  _ or else Steve wouldn’t be alive now. That gave Steve enough hope to force himself to complete the action. “Jarvis,” he said, clearing his throat and looking up at the ceiling. He knew that the computer wasn’t there; it wasn’t anywhere, really and everywhere at the same time, but it was the only logical place Steve could think to look.

 

There was no whirr to alert him that the computer was paying attention, but he knew that the machine was listening. 

 

Steve took another deep breath, the only sound in the crushingly silent room. He hovered on the edge for several moments. The edge of knowing where Bucky was, and being ignorant. It was an exceptionally dangerous edge to balance on, but he found that he didn’t care in the slightest. He wanted to balance on this edge for just a bit longer, because even if they didn’t find Bucky, he could savor this moment of having hope that Bucky was out there and accessible to him.

 

Though he had obsessed over finding Bucky from the moment he woke up and found that his best friend may or may not have remembered him well enough to save his ass, he had not actually prepared himself for the moment that would define whether or not it was possible to find Bucky.

 

Steve refused to think about what would happen if he failed.

 

If—the very slim chances aside,--he found Bucky, would he even be able to manage to get him to come back to the tower? How would the others react if he brought Hydra’s famed assassin back to the one safe place that most of the Avengers knew?

 

_ Don’t think about that now, _ Steve told himself. He seemed to do that a lot. There was a sort of procrastination that he had gotten into the bad habit of practicing when it came to Bucky. He would think of the consequences later, but he had to locate his best friend first. “Locate Sergeant James Barnes,” he finally spat out. It came out in a rush, words blurring together so thoroughly that Steve was surprised that Jarvis was able to understand. “Please,” he added as an afterthought, something that wasn’t necessarily applicable to the computer, but a habit that Steve found hard to break.

 

He watched the blank monitor whirr to life and green dots race across a map of the world. Steve felt something akin to fear shiver through his entire body. This was actually happening; this could be it. He could find Bucky.  _ And then what? _ That thought belonged with the ‘later’ thoughts, the things he would deal with later, but this one was filed there because he truly had no answer.

Up on the big screen that ran along the majority of the far wall, images flashed by, nearly too fast to comprehend fully. Steve found his eyes scanning them all the same, looking for the familiar face that he knew as well as his own—better, in fact. They hadn’t had the luxury of a mirror in his house, and he had looked at Bucky’s far more often than his own. He would recognize it anywhere.

 

But Bucky had changed. At least ten times, Steve was convinced that he had seen Bucky’s face—but no. Bucky had long hair, now, didn’t he?

 

Steve told himself to stop looking so closely at the pictures, voraciously scanning each and every face that appeared on the screen for the brief blip it was there for, but he wasn’t able to quite manage it. Every time he would tell himself to stop, a face that had long hair, grey eyes or the same startlingly red lips as Bucky, he would snap his gaze back, eyes glued to the screen with renewed vigor.

 

He really didn’t know if he actually expected Bucky. It was one of those things where Steve attempted to convince himself that he wouldn’t be able to find Bucky, that this would be a bust—as they called it nowadays—and he would go back to obsessing over finding his best friend in a most unhealthy manner. But there was part of him that hoped, all the same, the kind of small part that would crush a part of his humanity if it was allowed to grow too big or too hopeful.

 

Steve wouldn’t ever know if he would have felt disappointed if Jarvis had come up blank, because just as he was relaxing, slowly un-tensing each muscle in his body, one of the machines beeped and the big screen froze on a face.

 

It looked so different, so skeletal, but there was no denying that underneath the tiredness and the bruises and the days-old stubble, Bucky was still there. Steve felt a pang go through him, something that struck a part of him that hadn’t been touched since he had woken up. What it was, exactly, he couldn’t be sure. Bucky had always kept himself clean-shaven, but it was  _ Bucky. _ He had a slightly bewildered look in his grey eyes, as if he couldn’t quite remember what he was doing. Steve’s heart went out to his childhood friend for the utterly lost countenance. He knew how hard it was, he had gone through something nearly identical only months before.

Throw in a little brainwashing that left him desperately unsure of his identity, and it made it ten times worse than Steve’s situation.

 

“ _ Bucky,” _ he said. The sound was more of a strangled gasp than a word. He wanted to reach out, to put a hand on Bucky’s shoulder and take that incredibly sad look from his eyes. He looked down, feeling the utterly foreign sting of tears prick behind his eyes. Bucky was alive and—

Steve’s eyes widened as he dropped his gaze to the monitor he was leaning on. The location the picture had been taken was only miles from Stark Tower. Not another city, not another state, not halfway across the world. No, Bucky was in New York. It took Steve a few moments to tear his gaze away from the Bucky’s face, drinking in the achingly familiar features to glance at whatever background was against Bucky’s tired face. He squinted, making sure that his eyes weren’t betraying him, because if this picture was completely accurate, then he knew exactly where Bucky was.

 

“You stupid jerk,” Steve said, but he felt a smile spread across his face. “You’re not even smart enough to leave the city.”

 

He double-checked the time stamp—only minutes ago—and then the address, even though he knew exactly where Bucky was, and then he was a mere blur as he ran to the entrance, not bothering to wait on the elevator when he could take the stairs three times as fast. He caught a glimpse of Bruce and Tony peeking their heads out of one of the labs as he sprinted past. Tony shouted something that Steve didn’t quite catch past the blood rushing in his ears.

 

“Gonna go get Bucky,” he shouted, and then he was out the door and sprinting down the street fast enough to cause everything to blur beside him. Steve had spent the time he had awoken memorizing the vastly different streets and the changes to the ones he remembered from his time as a sickly child, and later an adult, unable to leave the relative comfort of his home.

 

He realized how ridiculous it looked—how ridiculous  _ he _ looked. He also knew that he should slow down, should be cautious, and should be more conscious of the people he was plowing through, around, sometimes  _ over _ if he couldn’t get through, but he couldn’t stop himself. He had waited over half a century for this—without even knowing exactly what it was he was waiting for. Closure, perhaps, when he thought Bucky was dead. But now… as he pelted down the street, it clicked, and Steve knew that this was it. This is what he had waited for ever since Bucky had fallen off of that train in the middle of winter, falling to whatever doom had awaited him for sixty-six years.

 

As he got closer, he slowed, realizing that Bucky—even  _ his _ Bucky, the one that remembered him and all of the time they had spent together—wouldn’t appreciate being barreled over by six-foot-two, two hundred forty pounds of super soldier. And there was no guarantee that Bucky would recognize him, would not see his approach as some sort of attack— _ hell, what had they done to Bucky? _

 

Steve stopped in front of the Smithsonian, across the street, to catch his breath. No one had seen his approach—probably because he had been running too fast to actually follow—and he wanted to take the time to blend in. After all, Bucky was in an exhibit that Steve recognized like the back of his hand— _ his _ exhibit.

 

Fitting, that they should meet in a place that commemorated what was.

 

The museum was, as usual, bustling with people. Little families from Idaho looking around the huge city with awe, field trips of children in matching uniforms a third of Steve’s height, and the odd security guard looking either incredibly bored or staring at everyone intensely, as if they expected each person that walked in to steal one of the fossils. They would stare at him, too. They might even recognize him.

 

Steve didn’t have a ball cap like he did every other time he had been here, but he had gotten a haircut that was much more modern, and maybe if he hunched his shoulders  _ just so _ then he wouldn’t be noticed. After all, most people didn’t come to the Smithsonian for the Captain America exhibit. Not anymore. They were there for the other fossils.

 

Steve entered, keeping his head down and shoulders rounded, mussing up his hair so that it looked the furthest from the side comb that he had worn all of his life—all ninety-some years of it. Inside the museum, it was as if someone had put a damper on all conversation. There was the odd whisper and occasional child speaking much too loudly, but the hustle and bustle of the outside world was lost in this cool, dry place.

 

Steve kept as close to the shadows as he could, going through exhibit after exhibit, sliding around people and generally avoiding attention as he had hoped—after all, he didn’t look like the rest of the fossils, did he?

 

He paused before he turned the corner that led to his exhibit and took a deep breath. He honestly didn’t know how this would turn out, what would happen, but he had to get this over with. Bucky was here—within a few feet, and he’d be damned if he didn’t take advantage of this moment.

When he did turn the corner, he didn’t pay attention to the illuminated screens, the black and white pictures and the grainy films that hadn’t been remastered quite yet. He didn’t pay attention to the lack of other people. No, he paid attention to the lone dark shape of a man against that familiar, yet utterly strange light.

 

Steve found Bucky standing in front of his own part of the exhibit.

 

He couldn’t see him all that well in the darkness, but he could tell that he hadn’t showered for weeks. Even without his super-soldier nose, he would have been able to tell. Steve could smell the river on Bucky from fifteen feet away, as if it was yesterday and the water had been filling his nose. As a picture flashed across the screen and illuminated Bucky’s so painfully familiar face, he could see a long scratch that ran the length of one cheekbone and skipped over his nose, slicing across the bridge of it.

 

He must have gotten it fairly recently, because if the serum that was inside of him was anything like Steve’s, he would heal within a few hours—days at most.

 

Bucky didn’t notice him at, first, but that was because Steve held his breath and focused on walking quietly, like he had been taught in the army, all those years ago. But Bucky’d been trained in the army too. He turned suddenly, as if he’d heard a shot, not the quiet dusting of Steve’s shoes against polished floors, and his fists were up, snarl splayed brilliantly across his familiar-foreign face. 

 

Steve extended his hands in the universal sign of ‘I mean no harm’ and stopped ten feet away from his best friend. “Hey, Buck,” he said, all quiet and careful. “It’s been awhile.” He could still feel the bruises from their last meeting and hoped that this one wouldn’t end the same. 

 

Bucky slowly lowered his fists, but his eyes remained foreign and feral. Steve took a step forward, and he could see the way everything in Bucky’s body tensed, and he wondered yet again what they had done to his best friend. Steve kept his hands up and took another step forward. Eight feet. 

 

“Will you let me make sure you’re okay?” He asked a few moments later when it looked as if Bucky was looking for every possible escape route. 

 

Bucky’s eyes were hard, drilling into Steve’s as he asked this, and they didn’t change afterwards, just skipped between his own as if Bucky was looking for a way that Steve would be lying. 

 

“I won’t hurt you,” Steve added softly, almost a whisper and he held his breath until Bucky finally let his out and unclenched his fists. 

 

Bucky still watched him warily as Steve walked slowly towards him, pausing in between placing his feet and carefully observing Bucky’s posture and the way his fingers were twitching as if he was debating whether or not to form them into fists and bruise Steve’s face again. Finally, he was close enough that he could feel the heat radiating from Bucky’s body, and he reached out, placing a hesitant hand on Bucky’s shoulder. 

 

“Hey, Buck,” he said weakly. Bucky’s eyes twitched, still blank and cold; made of steel. He flinched, and Steve immediately reached up to put his other hand on his friend’s shoulder, and that must’ve been the movement that set him off. The next thing Steve knew, he had a cold metal hand wrapped around his throat and his shoulder blades were pressed into the wall, and he could smell Bucky underneath the river, a cold, foreign metal smell and blood. Steve closed his eyes and tried to suck in a breath. 

 

“Why do I remember you?” Bucky asked, and Steve opened his eyes to see that Bucky’s were close, wild and so utterly confused. “But why can’t I remember your name?”

 

“Buck,” Steve wheezed. 

 

“Are you just another implanted memory? Did they do this to me? Are you with them?” He looked mad like this, and Steve cannot understand what it must feel like, to be unsure of everything that he has in his mind. 

 

“Let me… down… Bucky,” Steve wheezed out. He needed to explain, but he could already see his vision blackening at the edges. Bucky’s metal arm was stronger than anything he was used to. He found his hands fluttering around the cool metal, but dropped them. He needed Bucky to trust him. 

 

“Why are you here?” Bucky asked, grey eyes flaring into total delusion, and Steve knew that if he didn’t get through to him right here and now, he’d be dealing with the river again, and this time, Bucky might not be so kind as to fish him out at the end. 

 

“Let… me explain,” Steve managed to cough out. 

 

Bucky hesitated, and Steve could see it; James Barnes, all-American boy who grinned bright as the sun battling internally with the Winter Soldier, search and kill machine stripped of all basic human rights and sense of right and wrong. For the briefest moment, Steve thought that he would die right here, looking into eyes that he had looked into for years and years but so very different--wrong--that they could be someone else entirely. 

 

Just when his eyes fluttered closed as he fought to keep them open, to look at Bucky and maybe die with some comfort, the crushing weight on his larynx suddenly vanished and Steve was sucking in a few deep breaths, hands falling to his knees with a decided smack of flesh against fabric. Steve coughed a few times and glanced up through his swimming vision to see Bucky crouched against the opposite wall, hands clutched around his own head, metal and flesh threaded through stringy, too-long locks in need of a good showering, and as Steve’s vision cleared he saw that his best friend was shaking. 

 

Steve pulled himself up, though he could’ve used the few extra seconds to make sure he wasn’t passing out, but he needed to reach out and touch Bucky, to make sure that he was still there, that he wasn’t just a figment of Steve’s imagination. He stumbled forward, and ended up on his knees in front of Bucky, which he supposed was better, but his lack of coordination made him pause. Bucky looked up at him between hair and fingers, metal and flesh, and his eyes were wet, wide and so lost that it made something in Steve’s chest buckle. He reached out, taking Bucky’s flesh hand in his own and pulled them both up. 

 

“Come home with me, Buck,” he said, slinging Bucky’s arm over his shoulder. “And I’ll tell you everything I know.” They walked together, just two fossils from a day long forgotten, and Steve began telling Bucky about his childhood. 

 

00800

 

The first day was the hardest. Bucky was delusional and paranoid, and not at all himself, and it broke Steve to see his best friend like that, even though he knew to expect that. Steve didn’t know where else to go--his apartment wouldn’t have been a good place for Bucky at the moment--so he found himself going back to Stark Tower. The Avengers were all assembled at the front of the door when Steve half-carried Bucky up to it, and then Bucky was pulling back, using that incredible strength to try to get away. 

 

When Steve looked over at him, he saw the fear, the unrecognition that had clouded Bucky’s eyes, and when he looked over at him, he was a stranger. Bucky threw Steve’s arm off and backed away, drawing a gun that Steve hadn’t thought to take away from him. Steve felt adrenaline rush through his veins. He’d gotten him this far, he wasn’t going to let him slip away so easily.

 

Steve held up his hands once again and Bucky blinked at him. “Hey, Bucky, remember what we were just talking about.”

 

“I don’t  _ remember that, _ ” Bucky hissed, and the gun was shaking in his fingers, and one thing that Steve knew about Bucky was that he never shook before he took a shot. “I don’t remember you except in little flashes that are all fucked up in my head; how do I know that you’re not just some figment of my imagination? The only thing that I know is that I’m supposed to kill you all.”

 

Steve walked up to Bucky, pushing the gun aside, and he watched Bucky’s adam's apple bob as he swallowed and the way his eyes darted to the side as if he was searching for an escape route. Steve reached past all of that and placed a hand on Bucky’s shoulder--the flesh one--and squeezed, almost to the point of pain, to where Bucky winced, and then he drew back. “Does that feel real?” He asked, holding the hand that had just touched Bucky out for him to inspect. “Is this real?”

 

Bucky reached out with the hand not holding the gun--also flesh--and lightly ran fingers down Steve’s hand. He shook his head as if clearing some annoyance from his vision, and then he blinked up at Steve, eyes crystal clear. “Stevie?”

 

Steve couldn’t help the grin that stole over his face. “You’re the only one allowed to call me that,” he said, gripping Bucky’s hand in a sort of handshake, and although Bucky didn’t smile, he wasn’t scowling either, and he let Steve take him inside. 

 

“This is my room,” he told Bucky after they’d gone through the halls, Bucky looking at everything with wide, untrusting eyes and his hand clenching impossibly hard around Steve’s. It wasn’t really his, it was the room he’d stayed in before though, so he supposed that was the easiest explanation.

 

It was strange, for Bucky to by the one who needed help. Steve had always remembered Bucky being the one who held things together, the one who clenched Steve’s hand through an asthma attack. He supposed it was only fair that he got to take care of Bucky now. Bucky looked around at it for several moments and then looked back at Steve, waiting. “It’d probably be best if you stay here with me for awhile,” he added a few moments later. 

 

Bucky nodded, and Steve felt something uncoil in him. Bucky swayed in the doorway for a few moments after Steve went in, and then followed him, closing the door. They stood there like that for a few moments, the utter lack of noise surrounding them, pounding and loud. Steve eventually looked away from those haunted grey eyes that were only a whisper of what they used to by. 

 

“Are you hungry?” Steve asked to cover for his sudden discomfort. 

 

Bucky let out a dry, strained chuckle that sounded more painful than amused. “I can’t remember what food tastes like.” 

 

Steve nodded and didn't know what to day, so he simply walked into the bathroom. Bucky followed him after a moment, and Steve motioned to the shower. “You want to get cleaned up?” Bucky looked at him.

 

“When you were telling me about growing up with you,” he said, eyes flat now. 

 

“Yeah?” Steve asked, and he gave into the cowardice of not being able to meet that blank, empty gaze. He leaned down and snagged a few towels. 

 

“I don't remember,” Bucky said, and the utter abandon in his voice made Steve look up. “I remember  _ you _ and I remember little flashes but I can't remember anything you're telling me.” 

 

“Oh, Buck,” Steve said. He didn't follow it up with anything else because he didn't know how to best express what he wanted to say. He wanted to tell Bucky that everything would be okay, but he knew that Bucky would hear the false note in his voice, because  _ Goddammit he didn't know _ . He wanted to tell Bucky that the memories would come back, but he wasn't sure of the full extent. Maybe Bucky would never regain his full life and he would be left, half-broken. “I’m so sorry,” he finally said, and he had absolutely no clue what he was apologizing for. 

 

Bucky looked up at him from the area he was boring a hole into the floor with steely grey eyes. “What for?” He asked dispassionately, and Steve opened his mouth, searching for something that would sound sensical. After a moment, he let out a breath and shook his head. 

 

“Forget it.”

 

“You always explained yourself,” Bucky said quietly as Steve fussed over absolutely nothing, waiting for Bucky to dismiss him. Steve froze and looked up. Bucky blinked at him, almost as if he hadn’t meant to say that. “When you apologized,” he added, looking down once more, taking those familiar-foreign eyes off of Steve. 

 

“You remember that?” Steve asked, a smile stealing over his features despite his half-hearted attempt to keep it off. Bucky wasn’t looking at him, anyway. 

 

“Yeah,” Bucky said, and turned away from Steve. “Thanks,” he added, and the word was dead. Steve watched Bucky, looking for any indication for what had chanced, but he was just Bucky, squeezing the washcloth Steve had handed to him in all of his fussing. It was a clear dismissal, and Steve nodded, ducking his head and leaving, mumbling something about giving him some extra clothes. He didn’t bother going down the hall, simply slid to the floor outside of the bathroom and listened to the tap running and then the shower. He closed his eyes after a few minutes of the steady stream of water and wondered why he didn’t feel relieved. 

 

The moment he’d woken up in the hospital and found himself very much alive and not seventy years in the future, he’d been looking forward to the time that he could go after Bucky, to bring his best friend back and  _ fix him _ because this was all Steve’s problem. He should’ve made sure that Bucky was dead. He should’ve never left his body there in that frozen wasteland. Then maybe he could have saved him. 

 

_ It’s too late, _ he thought as the water continued pounding in the background.  _ It’s seventy years too late. _ He couldn’t do a single thing about it. 

 

00800

 

Bucky looked like an entirely different creature when he reemerged from the bathroom. Steve stood in front of the large windows decorating one wall, eventually able to pry himself off of the floor and out from underneath the crushing emotional pain that had threatened to split his head in two. As the door opened and Bucky emerged, Steve turned.

  
  


“I’d almost thought you’d managed to drown yourself in there,” he said, managing to flash a smile, though it was a physical pain, the muscles of his face stretching, and Steve wondered how long exactly it’d been since he’d had a reason to smile. 

 

Bucky paused in the doorway, looking uncomfortable. Steve quickly dropped the smile and held his hand out, walking towards Bucky with the intention of taking the clothes, but stopped dead when Bucky stumbled back, eyes wide, metal hand outstretched. 

 

“Bucky,” Steve said softly. “It’s alright. It’s me.”

 

Bucky looked at him with wild eyes, confused eyes. “I don’t know you,” he said low, dangerous. The clothes he had put on hung off of him in places they clung to Steve, sleeves a bit too long, pants cinched tight with a belt. He dropped his own clothes and his gaze went dead. “Target,” he said, voice strangely robotic. “Steve Rogers, Codename Captain America. Orders: exterminate.”

 

“Bucky,” Steve said, assuming a carefully aware stance that would allow him to fight if need be. “Wait.”

 

“I don’t know that name,” Bucky said, tilting his head slightly to the side, that strangely long hair hanging in his face. Non-flesh fingers clenching at his side, clicking and sliding together metallically. Steve kept his gaze on Bucky’s. He lunged forward suddenly, and Steve took the first punch with his forearm, gritting his teeth through the pain of metal shredding his skin and the superhuman strength behind the punch.

 

“Yes you do,” Steve shouted, throwing the weight of Bucky’s arm off and tackling him before Bucky could react. “You told me you remembered me, Bucky, and I know that somewhere in your mind you remember me.”

 

“I was ordered to exterminate you,” Bucky said, eyes dead, voice flat. Metal fingers wrapped around his forearm and suddenly he wasn’t looking at Bucky, hair splayed out on the polished faux-wood floor, but Bucky, hair hanging in his face and dim lights haloing his head. 

 

“I’m your best friend,” Steve said, and it was a last-ditch resort of sorts, because he couldn’t think of another thing to say as Bucky reached out, hands wrapping around his throat--hadn’t they just been in a position like that only minutes ago? He simply sat there, wondering how deep they had dug into Bucky’s brain for him to forget his best friend and the fact that he’d agreed to come with him, that he would try to remember only an hour or so ago. He’d already forgotten Steve. Steve had the strange urge to laugh, and for the first time he was glad that Bucky was choking him so that the ludacris sound didn’t bubble past the back of his throat. 

 

What had they done to his best friend? Was he really so far gone that he wouldn’t be able to be salvaged? Was Bucky that broken?

 

Bucky’s face was flat, blank, and there was nothing of the man who had taken care of Steve in the long, cold winters, giving up days of food at a time to make sure that Steve had his medicine. There was nothing of the man who jumped in and beat up the punks that Steve had challenged to fights for saying something unrighteous. There was nothing of the man who had looked up at him from that table in Hydra’s base that Steve hadn’t even known he was in, and nothing reminiscent of the borderline panicked look as he refused to leave Steve. Nothing of the man who’d drank with him every night after a mission with the Howling Commandos. 

  
Steve searched and searched, but there was nothing. Nothing but Hydra’s assassin, Winter Soldier. Steve’s vision faded out looking into those cold, dead eyes and his last thought was,  _ how can I call myself a hero when I can’t save those closest to me?  _


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Told from Bucky's POV, angsty, etc. The usual. Enjoy! (I feel like this is a huge train wreck)

00800

 

Vivid, too bright. Redwhiteblueblonde.Things hadn’t been this vivid for years. There’d been years and years of white snow and black Hydra and the red of blood. The cold of Russia and of the cryo chamber. Where in the hell was he?

 

_ Operation: Exterminate _

 

_ Target: Steven Rogers _

 

_ Running Diagnostics… Target 75% eliminated. Forty seconds of continued-- _

 

_ Steve looked up at Bucky from the bed, so sickly, sweat slicking his forehead yet smiling so brightly, it was almost painful to look at.  _ “Thanks, Buck,”  _ he said, holding up the pencil Bucky had handed to him as if it was the answer to the universe.  _ “You should’ve gotten food instead, though.”

 

“You needed a new one, punk,”  _ Bucky said, ruffling Steve’s hair. Steve smiled again, batting Bucky’s hand away. _

 

“Jerk.”

 

_ Rewire _

 

_ Reroute, memories defunct _

 

_ Operation: Exterminate-- _

 

“What is your name?”  _ It was a cold, harsh voice. She’d looked so nice, so approachable, when he had looked at her. The Soldier thought maybe he’d get an easy psychological evaluation this time around. She didn’t have a shred of emotion on her icily beautiful face as she stood behind that damned glass panel and pressed that blasted button that gave him no choice but to hear her talking.  _

 

“My name is James Buchanan Barnes, 32557038”  _ he said, looking at the huge man with the gun out of the corner of his eye. He was sitting on the edge of a chair he remembered, but distantly, as if it had happened a long time ago. He remembered the pain if he didn’t comply. But he didn’t want to comply. He wanted to see her icy facade crack.  _

 

“What is your name?” She asked again, and there was no change in her voice. 

 

“Bucky Barnes,”  _ The Soldier said, and he wondered when his hair had gotten so long. He never let it get this long. Someone, someone dancing along the edges of his memory like a nightmare barely remembered had always cut it before it got this long.  _

 

“I’m going to give you one more chance,”  _ she said, and he decided that he didn’t like her very much at all. Some of them at least talked to him like he was human. She didn’t bother.  _

 

“My name is Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes of the 107th Infantry Regiment,”  _ he said with surety. They wouldn’t make him forget it again.  _ “32557038.”

 

_ The woman nodded to the man with the gun.  _ “Wipe him.” _ It was the dreaded words, and with them came a sudden rush of memories; faces and names, flickering through his mind faster than the bullets he had pumped into the bodies of men, women, children, all screaming and pleading for mercy that he was unable to bestow upon them. He would not forget this time. He would never forget. _

 

_ They’d always asked him that question the first time he’d been caught by Hydra. They would ask it over and over, and even when they didn’t, when they asked him other things, that’s what he’d say back, even if it earned him another punch to the vulnerable organs not protected to his ribs that would have him coughing up chunks of clotted blood for hours after they left. He’d never forgotten it then, even though he sometimes forgot everything else, like what sunlight felt like against his skin and how his little sister’s smile seemed to light up the whole room, just like Steve’s. He’d always been able to remember then. Now, he wasn’t so sure, and the fear surged through him. The Soldier didn’t want to forget, not again. He stood, intending to do what, he wasn’t sure. _

 

_ The man pushed him harshly back  into the chair, and Bucky Barnes--whoever the hell that was, it was just a name--felt fear for the first time. They had conditioned him to feel nothing but fear, but he liked denying them the pleasure whenever he could. Whenever they showed him footage of killing thousands upon thousands, he simply looked at them with dead eyes and asked what it would be this time. They could do anything--anything at all, thought there wasn’t anything that they hadn’t done already--and he wouldn’t waver.  _

 

_ So when the man pushed the Soldier into the chair so that he could feel the almost-padded back digging into his shoulder blades and shoved the mouthguard into his mouth after punching him to loosen his reluctant jaw and those machines closed around his face--so suffocating, _ please, please get me out of here, anyone, help me _ \--he simply sat there and looked at the woman with dead eyes until the pain sparked, jarring and burning every nerve in his body, and it arched up in protest, muffled sounds snaking their way out of his throat without his consent, and then there was nothing.  _

 

_ System Reboot…  _

 

_ System Reboot _

 

_ Connection Established _

 

_ Operation: Exterminate _

 

_ Target: Steven Rogers, Codename Captain America, Enemy of Hydra _

 

_ Enemy of… Hydra. Hydra… enemy  _

 

_ My name is James Buchanan Barnes  _ (said a thousand times over and over again but always forgotten).  _ Sergeant of the 107th Infantry with Captain Steve Rogers.  32557038. _

 

_ Bestfriendtrusthim.  _

 

_ Steve? Steve, what are you doing? Why aren’t you fighting?  _

 

_ System Reboot _

 

00800

 

Everything was exceptionally blurry and something was off in his arm. 

 

_ Running diagnostics: system undamaged, strength 58%, heart rate: 62 resting, blood pressure: normal. Hydrate if possible _

 

When Bucky tried to open his eyes, they were taped shut. He immediately surged up, trying to free himself, and there was a loud exclamation in a language that was native to him.  _ English. America. Captain America. Exterminate… _

 

“Cap, I think he’s waking up,” someone said and it was distorted. Were they messing with his hearing again? Was him not being able to hear as good as any dog not good enough already? That goddamn scientist's swam up in front of his eyes, still taped shut somehow, and he arched off of whatever he was on again, his arm tingling in the sort of half-pain that he felt with the faux nerves in his metal arm.  _ Must’ve broken something, _ he noted groggily, and his mind provided him with the appropriate data.  _ Reparations: central nerves underway, strength: 63%, recovery time: 8 hours, 19 minutes. Boost healing? _

 

“Should I come in?”

 

That voice was familiar. Bucky arched up again. The only voices to recognize were the ones he didn’t want to hear. “Maybe not yet,” the first one said, and this one was familiar as well, but not in the shocking way he was used to. 

 

The gap in his memory was more disconcerting than any had been before. Had they forgotten to give him the serum? That had never happened before. He’d always woken, adrenaline racing through his body, fear clearing his mind and clouding anything but one thing: what the agent told him before slapping a gun into his hand and he left the same room over and over again, and when he came back, he should’ve felt guilty for the collateral. He didn’t until maybe just a few minutes before he was wiped, when he  _ remembered.  _

 

“Bruce, look at this,” the first voice said again. 

 

“What is it?” Another vaguely familiar voice. They must’ve been agents that worked on him, assistants to the man whose name eluded his mind at the moment. He didn’t arch up against the restraints that were fifty pounds too heavy for him to break. He simply laid upon the cool--43.5 degree--metal of whatever table they had gotten him onto and evened his breathing. 

 

_ Heart rate: decrease from 95 to 72 _

 

“His brain is basically  _ wires.  _ They’ve replaced maybe thirty percent of the tissue with gears and cogs and wires.” The first voice, much more excited than it had a right to by. They were just looking at an asset, after all. They weren’t allowed to engage emotionally with the assets. It was an attempt to keep them stable. 

 

“Shit,” the second voice said. 

 

“But look at this. His brain has regrown. Brains don’t  _ regrow _ , Bruce.”

 

“I know that, Tony.” Did that voice sound a tiny bit irritated? Someone would be having words with him later about being emotional around the asset. “But we do have a supersoldier. If someone cut open Steve, we’d probably witness a few more miracles of man.”

 

“I’m right here,” the voice that caused Bucky to panic said, static-filled and over the intercom. Bucky took a deep breath in. 

 

“We know,” the two scientists chorused. Bucky took another breath in. 

 

_ Oxygen level: 98%  _

 

_ Regulate _

 

_ Over-consumption may cause loss of consciousness _

 

He slowed his breath. 

 

“The point is, he’s not completely machinery. You said he had a seizure, Steve. It must by the regrown synapses firing to override all the metal crap they put in his head. Oh, you are just the perfect specimen.”

 

“Don’t call Bucky a specimen,” Steve said. “It disturbs me.”

 

“Aww, it disturbs him, how cute. What should we call him, Bruce?” 

 

At that out of place comment, Bucky finally figured out that his eyelids weren’t taped and that he could open them. The light input was too much, and he squinted his eyes. 

 

_ Regulate _

 

He was staring directly into the lighting fixture. Composition: fluorescent, industrial grade. He couldn’t help but remember that they only used LED in Hydra. More energy efficient. Had he been woken up in a predetermined situation without his awakening psych evaluation after they gave him the shot of the serum?

 

What was different about this time?

 

Suddenly, there were two faces above his, both dark-haired; one sharp and angular and the other blockier. 

 

“Rise and shine, sleeping beauty,” angular one said, Tony by the tone of voice.  _ Tony Stark, Codename Iron Man,  _ background machinery informed him. He blinked. The other one would be Bruce Banner, then. What were his orders again?

 

“Exterminate,” he croaked, throat clicking dryly against the sounds, straining against the bonds that held his wrists and ankles once again, but they remained steadfast. 

 

“Yeah, and that’s why we have you cuffed,” Tony Stark said, grinning humorlessly. 

 

_ He’d been captured by the enemy.  _

 

_ Protocal?  _

 

They’d never initiated a self-destruct mode. He had always been too good. The best. The only one better, that could match his strength--

 

“Bucky?” That voice. It belonged to Steve Rogers, Captain America, and with the name came a disturbingly long list of pictures that his memory banks served him with. He’d only had that one photo that he’d stared at in the helicopter on the way to kill him before. Where did these pictures come from?

 

Him fighting Steve the first time, the second time, a brief flash of him falling and of Bucky diving into a river and pulling him up. He’d looked down at him with discontent in his mind, mixing up everything and setting everything into a huge mess of jumbled memories and hallucinations--they had to be hallucinations, right? Him holding Steve up against a wall, choking him and demanding to know what he was seeing was real. 

 

Him watching Steve’s smile, holding a paintbrush, and a smear of dark green paint atop one cheekbone. Panic, he didn’t remember him, this was another trick Hydra was using to wipe his memories more fully, and he needed to kill it. 

 

He’d killed rooms full of Steve. Killing Steve over and over, and they’d only let him out when every single Steve was dead. Then, he’d killed his family over and over and over, until he was made of blood that wasn’t his own, until he didn’t remember who he was.

 

_ Simulation engaged. _

 

_ No, no nononono not again, _ Bucky screamed, but not a single sound left his lips. He’d been good at internalizing his screams for a long time now. They could never know. They would wipe him until he couldn’t remember what anything looked like, until he couldn’t remember the English language.

 

He struggled out of the fog, the fear that they shot into him in the form of adrenaline, drilled into him in the form of more wires in his brain, more false memories implanted,  _ more simulations _ . The simulations were the worst. The fog clung to him, dragging him down like vines clinging to his limbs. He struggled against it, and he felt his shoulder blades digging into the cold metal--43.5 degrees still--as he struggled against it. He could feel his limbs shaking--flesh ones, at least. His metal one was oddly silent, nerves deadened by something. Blood was like a sharp tang in his mouth, and someone was shouting, “Get him a mouth guard before he bites his fucking tongue off!”

 

As the rubber was shoved into his mouth, Bucky felt himself go numb. It had been another test, and he’d failed. He’d be reprogrammed, and then frozen and when he woke up he wouldn’t remember a single thing. He’d forget-- “Steve,” he tried to say. He wanted to apologize, he never used to choke Steve. 

 

He couldn’t get the words out past the mouth guard that tasted exactly the same as it always had-- _ dammit why’d you have to go do something so stupid, Barnes? Now they’ll use him against you more. Damn idiot. _ \--and after a few moments, his body stopped trying to resist the fear, the overpowering fear that dragged him down into that endless room where endless Steves waited, hands fisted and tiny bodies shaking with fury, that righteousness in his gaze.

 

_ “Let me fight ‘em, Bucky! I had him on the ropes!”  _

 

_ “Sure you did,” Bucky returned, ruffling Steve’s hair, because the man was short enough then for him to do that without reaching up awkwardly.  _

 

_ System reboot _

 

00800

 

It was clear where Bucky was the next time he woke. Filtering the various particles that floated through the air let Bucky know that he was in some sort of closed-off room. The only light source came from a bright set of fluorescent lights above, and the technology all around him was excruciatingly modern. A heart monitor told him what he already knew in rhythmic beeps and there was an IV in his arm. His other was pinned somewhere else, metal plates taken off and the machinery that acted as veins of sorts bared to the light. Bucky returned his head to neutral position and closed his eyes again.

 

Everything was apparent to him that had happened, though it was all jumbled up together in a nonsensical mess, and Bucky knew that it was his brain trying to figure out how to catalogue the differences between serum-pumped brain and confused-memories brain. 

 

Funnily enough, even though Bucky had been working to get himself off of the serum for the longest time, fighting against its hold at every possible moment, and now he wanted the clarity it gave him, the vivid, too-bright colors his fear-soaked mind saw through it. Everything was fuzzy, hazy, confused, and Bucky didn’t know what to believe. He’d spent the last seventy years being told what to believe, and he’d thought that he’d retain his sense of self. 

 

He’d let himself believe what they told him eventually. It was only natural. A mind too often beaten and broken would eventually give in. They’d finally broken him. 

 

_ If dreams were horses,  _ his mom used to say. It’d been a long, long time since Bucky had allowed himself to think of his mother while awake. He only killed her in his dreams. 

 

The door opened before Bucky could completely shake that thought, and he tensed immediately, blood pressure rising almost instantly. 

 

_ Regulate, _ came the warning. He waved it away mentally and focused on keeping his breathing even and not making any sudden movements. He wanted to know who was in the room with him, but right now he had the advantage. The visitor thought that he was asleep. 

 

His pulse was checked, and Bucky kept himself lax, refusing to tense up, muscles twitching in anticipation. That hand could wrap around his neck, choke him--Bucky cut the thoughts off and rerouted. That’s how they’d made him think with the serum; everything had been a threat, out to get him, killable. He needed to  _ think. _

 

“Pulse is strong,” the woman said. He took note of her voice. It sounded relaxed, and wasn’t familiar. “And you said that his brain has stabilized?”

 

“Yeah, it went through some sort of reboot,” a more familiar voice said, and Bucky recognized it as one that belonged to one of the vague, blurry faces that had blinked in and out of existence above his prone position as his brain had shorted out once again as it was overridden with the memories--memories he was supposed to be forgetting. 

 

_ He’d never been awake this long, _ Bucky realized suddenly. The longest they’d kept him awake was a few weeks with regular checkups and evaluations that sometimes led to more serum and more prepping and more treatments, and it was bordering on a month with no treatment at all. 

 

“It seems that the longer it’s going, the more of the brain is waking up. It was all clustered in that one area where you saw all of the activity in the scan I showed you. That’s the party that controls fear and they’ve rewired his brain to make all decisions based on that, plus I found traces of a substance in his system that made his adrenals work overtime and initiate the fight or flight mode. He’s been operating on fear alone for god knows how long.” The voice over the comm was crackly and almost-recognizable, but Bucky didn’t chase the memory. He’d probably have to reboot again, and every time he did that, it made it harder to wake up with that sense of surety, that one that Bucky craved now.

 

“But that’s not the case now?” The woman asked. 

 

“It’s… it’s questionable. But I think that his brain is finding ways to connect to the remaining tissue, therefore completely bypassing Hydra’s technology,” the voice said again, and suddenly it hit Bucky who it was. 

 

Tony Stark, codename Iron Man. 

 

_ Operation: Eliminate _

 

_ Shut up,  _ Bucky ordered his brain, and it subsided for the first time in forever. He took in an even breath and let it out and the woman’s hand dropped from his neck. He slowly let the muscles in his neck soften, but they jumped back to attention as he felt a light brush of fingers across his forehead. 

 

_ Don’t touch me, _ he snarled inwardly, but he only felt a piece of hair move and then she retreated once more and he hadn’t said anything at all.

 

“I think he’s awake, should we let Steve in?”

 

_ Steve? _ The sensory input pounded him as the woman left, and he hardly heard the door click shut behind him. Steve’s laugh, the smell of his medicine and paint, the taste of paint in the food that Steve prepared, his greeting, his smile. Bucky snapped himself away from the downpour, focusing on regulating his breathing once more. He didn’t want to see Steve, not right now. 

 

“He did ask for him,” Tony Stark said. 

 

That hadn’t been part of his feverish hallucination then, had it? 

 

_ Heart Rate 92  _

 

Bucky took another deep breath in, but his heart didn’t slow, not a single beat per minute, and his brain told him to regulate. 

 

The door opened again after a few minutes of painful anticipation. Bucky regulated his breathing, but his heart rate skyrocketed. He didn’t think that he could bear all of the sensory input--he rarely let his mind get so clouded with this much. It was always just the objective and the feel of the gun in his hand, the cold whipping his face and his lack of feeling anything. He fought to stay grounded, to feel the cold metal beneath his shoulder blades and the way the restraint cut off the circulation just a bit in his flesh arm. 

 

Steve didn’t say anything, but he heard the slide of fabric against flesh as his best friend moved towards him. He didn’t want to look, but at the same time, he found that he wanted to open his eyes, to  _ see _ Steve for the first time in seventy years. He’d seen him--snippets of memory, trying to paste his face onto any tall blonde man without knowing why, and those hallucinations the psych evaluations always gave him if he failed--right before he was wiped and he didn’t see anything resembling Steve at all. 

 

He hadn’t been in his right mind either of the times he’d talked to Steve before this; he’d been confused whether or not his mind could provide him with the right information, the relevant data. Now, he knew, and the enormous weight of all that he had done was slowly crumbling down onto him and he didn’t know how long it would be until he couldn’t handle all of the blood on his hands. 

 

“Bucky?” Steve said, soft, like he was talking from one side of the room to his best friend, asking without the words for Bucky to climb into his bed because he was shaking so bad that he couldn’t sleep and he’d go into another fit of asthma. Like nothing had happened. Bucky didn’t stir. 

 

_ I fucked up, _ he wanted to say, and he wanted Steve to look at him with that forgiving look, after he’d stayed out too late drinking or lost yet another job because he’d lost his temper with someone who’d made fun of Steve or the fact that they lived together. And he knew that Steve would look at him exactly like that if he opened his eyes and apologized, as he had every other time he’d messed up, because he’d tell him,  _ it wasn’t his fault,  _ and,  _ it hadn’t been him.  _ But it had been him and it was his fault. 

 

So he stayed still and waited for Steve to continue. After a few moments, a shaky breath was expelled. “They tell me that you’ll be okay, physically at least. There’s something wrong with your arm but Tony’s fixing it, and they’re trying to get the Hydra tech out of your head.”

 

_ Physically at least,  _ Bucky echoed internally. 

 

He remembered his hands around Steve’s throat. How quickly he’d been able to slip into old habits once he got into that shower and heard the constant roar of the water all around him and watched blood drip from his hair, running pink into the white linoleum in patterns that looked too much like the faces of his victims. 

 

He’d recognized the smell of Steve on his clothes as he’d pulled them on and he’d tried to tell himself that it was alright, that this was what he needed to do, but the moment he stepped out and saw the unfamiliar room and Steve, not the same person he remembered in most of the memories he had of him had been there quite suddenly, and whatever remained of the serum had made his mind that cloudy, fear-clear and he’d fallen into the easiest thing, the thing that he knew best, that he’d known for the past seventy years.

 

“I forgive you,” he said. “I know you, and I know that you’re blaming yourself for a lot of things right now, but Bucky, that wasn’t you.” His voice cracked at the end of the sentence, and it’d been _years_ since Steve had problems with his voice cracking. “ _I_ should be the one apologizing to _you_ _,_ Buck.” 

 

It almost made him open his eyes.  _ Almost. _ Because Steve Rogers had absolutely nothing to apologize for. He was the most honest, passionate, caring,  _ loving _ person Bucky had known, save maybe his mother, Sarah, and even then, it was a total toss-up. And even though Steve had apologized up and down throughout the time they’d known each other; for little things, for big things, and for things that weren’t even remotely his fault, he hadn’t needed to utter a single one. 

 

“I shouldn’t have let you fall. I was this close to catching you, Buck. I almost had you. If I’d just swung myself out a little farther, come a little sooner, I could’ve saved you, spared you through this entire thing. We wouldn’t even be in this situation in the first place,” Steve said, the words jagged and broken, jumbling together. 

 

He wanted to tell Steve that, he wanted to open his eyes and tell him that nothing was his fault--he wasn’t the one who was at fault here, how could he even  _ think  _ that?--but he couldn’t. Opening his eyes would mean looking into Steve’s, and the expectation would be there. Steve wouldn’t mean for it to be, but it would all the same. So he simply lay there, mind shattered and heart feeling ragged and raw for the first time in over half a century, and waited for the only person left that meant vaguely anything to him to leave.  

 

After a few more minutes, he felt Steve reach out, touching his arm--flesh--lightly before standing. The door closing was the only other sound that Bucky focused on before he blinked his eyes open and stared into the fluorescent light. 

 

The memories flooded through him, threatening to crush him whole, both the memories that had been repressed by Hydra and the ones that they hadn’t touched, and Bucky simply looked up at the ceiling, trying to remember how to feel anything at all other than fear. 

 

00800

 

It was two days later that Bucky made the decision. 

 

Steve hadn’t come back in the time that he’d been strapped to this table in those two days. He’d been put to sleep a few times so that Tony could work on his arm and sew up whatever they’d done to his brain. 

 

He rebooted when he fell back into the old patterns and it may have only been him, but his brain seemed to be going there less and less, until he went a full few hours without the urge to kill someone. That was when he asked for someone. 

 

It wasn’t Tony that came into the room, and Bucky was glad. He didn’t want to have to face the questions that would come. Bucky  _ had _ murdered his father. No, it was the other one, Bruce Banner. Neutral territory. 

 

“Can I have a notebook?” He asked. 

 

Bruce looked at him for a few moments, as if feeling the situation out, and then nodded once and came to unstrap his flesh wrist. Bucky wound it around a few times and then a pencil was placed in his hand. He looked up, nodding his thanks to Bruce Banner and began writing in the notebook that was presented to him. 

 

He was monitored carefully during the times they let him write. It took him three days and switching to his metal hand constantly to rid himself of the cramps. He hadn’t done much writing as Hydra’s asset. He’d filled several notebooks by the end of those three days, and nothing felt any clearer. His mind was still shifting endlessly through what might have been fact or fiction, all together in a mess that made him want to scream every time he looked at it too long, tried to untie the intricacies of it all. So he simply wrote. 

 

He looked up as he punctuated the last sentence he’d written, up at the red-haired woman he vaguely remembered being in the Red Room with him, and he remembered the screaming and the pain and being wiped when things had gotten out of hand. She looked at him with wary eyes and he wondered if she remembered him. 

 

He held out the pencil and closed the notebook. She stood up and retrieved it, her hand immediately twitching toward the restraint. He wondered if she was scared of him. He wouldn’t hurt her. Not now. Not ever, if he could help it. He wondered how long it would be before he could make those sorts of decisions for himself, without Hydra tech telling him, guiding him, turning his every thought into fear-soaked nothingness. 

 

“Thank you,” he said to her. She gave him a strange smile and laced his hands back into the restraints. “When d’you think they’ll let me out of here?” He asked, almost surprised at the way he said it. He’d been trained to speak articulately, and he’d lost all sign of an accent of any kind long ago. Natasha looked surprised as well, but that was for a different reason, and she covered it quickly. 

 

“I’ll ask someone for you,” she said and turned to the door, pencil in hand. Bucky looked down at the closed cover of the notebook. This one was green. It wasn’t as if he was organizing them, or anything, but they’d always brought him a different colored notebook. 

 

“Подождите,” he said suddenly, and she pulled up tight like a string. When she looked back at him, her eyes were gleaming, primal, something much more familiar to him. “Ты помнишь?”

 

She looked at him, eyes unreadable for several moments, and then she nodded once. “Yes, I remember,” she said in English. Bucky nodded and looked down at the notebook once more, and he remembered. He’d already written it down, somewhere.

 

“Will you help me remember?” He asked. “Our time at the Red Room?”

 

She looked at him, red hair so out of place in this white, sterile place, and there was a touch of fear in her gaze. She looked as if she wanted to escape, and she did, leaving without another sound.

 

It was two more days before someone talked to him again, and it was Tony Stark, face set. “You’re as stable as you’re going to get,” he said, looking not at all happy about this latest development. “And it’s pointless keeping you locked in here. We need to see how you react with other stimuli.”

 

Bucky looked up and blinked. He hadn’t actually expected to be let out. The asset was never allowed anything extra, and he’d gotten used to being used and used until he broke, and then he was harshly reassembled. Never anything more. 

 

Tony undid the restraints, and Bucky waited for something to happen, for him to be knocked out, or for the room in front of him to dissolve into fog and he would be back in that cold, unforgiving room where all of the worst things happened. Or he would wake, teeth chattering to find that another ten years had passed without him knowing.

 

But Tony opened the door, and for the first time in seventy years, The Winter Soldier walked free from a room of his own accord. Freedom tasted bittersweet on his tongue and stung in his eyes like the tears he hadn’t ever let himself shed, not once since he’d been captive of Hydra. 

 

_ My name is Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes of the 107th Infantry Regiment.  _ For the first time since he’d heard the words echo in his ears from times past, he believed that he could possibly be that person, that he could chase that defiant voice speaking it in his head and maybe find the person behind that name and number..

 

00800 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told myself I wouldn’t do this, but I did. So here’s the Russian translations. Please correct me if I’m wrong, I know absolutely nothing about Russian and I used Google translate.   
> Подождите--wait  
> Ты помнишь-- Do you remember?
> 
> Also, please let me know of any other errors, I don't have a beta and apparently can't edit my own work sometimes. Also, please let me know what you think. All input is welcome; good, bad, all of it. Thanks!
> 
> Kirk Out


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back in Steve's head for a bit. (Also, war flashback in the beginning.) Please let me know what you think! (Or of any errors, I suck at englishing.)

After he’d rescued Bucky from Hydra, he’d thought that life would go back to normal, or whatever semblance of normal they’d ever had. The moment Bucky had looked at him with those almost  _ proud _ eyes as he’d shouted, “Let’s give it up for Captain America,” something that had been coiled tight since Bucky had left shifted looser in his stomach. 

 

He’d been wrong. 

 

For the first few nights, sleeping with the familiar rhythm of Bucky’s breathing in the background was the sweetest music he’d ever heard. They were sharing a tent, Bucky, Steve and a few other guys from the 107th. Steve’d been offered a tent of his own, but he’d turned it down, saying that he didn’t need anything special. He didn’t want to leave Bucky either, but he didn’t want to announce that to the whole world. He knew what they’d be called; he knew what they’d been called by some back in Brooklyn.  _ Fairies. Homosexuals. _ Two men living alone together wasn’t exactly normal, but it was normal for Steve and Bucky. They’d be there for each other no matter what. 

 

Steve knew that if he’d decided to take that tent by himself, he’d never have known how bad Bucky was. During the day he was his normal self, confidence through the roof and smile nearly blinding. 

 

It was the third day when Steve awoke to the soft moans. At first, he felt his cheeks heat as he thought that someone was having one of, well,  _ those _ dreams. He closed his eyes and pretended not to hear, until he heard Bucky say, “No.. no. My name… my name…Don’t...” and then Steve nearly smacked himself on the forehead. How had he forgotten what any of Bucky’s noises sounded like? After all, Bucky sometimes brought dames home and they got loud enough for Steve to recognize the sound of Bucky’s moans. 

 

Steve sat upright, and realized that they weren’t sounds of pleasure at all. It was unnerving, how close pain and pleasure could sound without context, Steve remembered thinking as he rolled out of bed and crept across the few feet that separated the bunks they slept on. The moon was full enough for Steve to see Bucky’s face with little difficulty, and he saw the frown drawing Bucky’s face into a fierce scowl. 

 

“Buck,” he whispered, barely loud enough to hear, and reached out, grasping a hesitant hand around Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky started awake immediately, his own hand shooting from underneath the blanket and wrapping around Steve’s throat, eyes wide and blank with fear. Steve made a noise of surprise cut off halfway through, and he reached up, clawing Bucky’s fingers away. Only months ago, he wouldn’t have been able to get Bucky off, but with his new strength, he easily pried Bucky’s fingers away and held his wrist, other hand gripping his flailing arm by the shoulder.

 

“Hey, Buck,” he said when Bucky stopped flailing. Wild eyes met his, and for a brief moment, Steve wondered if he was recognized at all, but then Bucky surged up and wrapped his arms around Steve. Steve froze, hands hovering in their previous positions while Bucky--all shaking, hot, sweaty mess, clung to him like a child. He could feel Bucky’s breath, hot, uneven and shaking hitting the skin between neck and shirt. He gently placed his hands against Bucky’s back and patted him awkwardly. They’d always been comfortable touching each other more than other men who were friends had been, but this was out of character even for him. 

 

After a moment, Bucky pulled back, eyes down, face unreadable. “Sorry,” Bucky muttered, wiping a hand across his forehead. “You caught me by surprise.”

 

“Oh, Buck,” Steve said, sitting back on his heels and trying to catch a glimpse of his best friend’s face. It was hard to remember that he had been a prisoner of war. Bucky was always the one that was so strong, so resilient, nothing could happen to him, could it? Nothing could touch Bucky. “What did they do to you there?”

 

“Was I talking?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

One of the other men shifted, the snoring interrupted as he moved, turning over and muttering something unintelligible. Steve glanced over, and then back at Bucky, who was finally looking at him, his face gaunt and Steve noticed that the bruises stood out more prominently than they had in the day. How had Bucky gotten such a haunted look in his eyes?

 

When he looked up at Steve finally, eyes leaving the area just over his shoulder where the other soldier was, Steve tilted his head towards the exit, and Bucky nodded, and Steve stood, pushing his way out of the tent. 

 

The moon was almost full, he noted, glancing up at the sky after nodding at the patrolman, and for once, it didn’t smell like fires. Bucky appeared beside him, and Steve started walking. Bucky followed without question. They walked in silence for some time, and then Bucky spoke, to Steve’s surprise. Usually, when there was something wrong, Steve was the one to break the ice. 

 

“I’m sorry I woke you up.”

 

“I was awake already,” Steve lied, and they walked out into the surrounding forest before either spoke again. “What did they do to you, Buck?” Steve asked, stopping. Bucky took a few more steps, and then pivoted slowly to face Steve. His face was shadowed. 

 

“Wha’d’y mean?” He asked, casual, hands stuck in the pockets of his pants. To the outside observer, he looked completely relaxed, but Steve had drawn the lines of Bucky’s body when he was relaxed way too many times, and he was the antithesis at the moment. 

 

“You know what I mean.”

 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Bucky muttered, turning away and began walking again. “I’m fine.”

 

“You’re quite obviously not,” Steve said, hurrying to catch up with him. It was strange, to be the one who could easily gain on him with the longer legs now; it was something Steve would have to get used to. He stepped in front of Bucky, cutting him off, and this time, when Bucky looked up at Steve, his eyes were lit by moonlight, bleached of all color, and still, Steve could see the incredible amount of pain his friend’s eyes held. 

 

“What do you want me to tell you?” He asked, and his voice broke at the end of the question. Steve had only heard Bucky’s voice do that when his mom died and he was telling Steve about it in the cool, calm way that Bucky broke bad news, and a couple of times when they were kids. “That they drugged me with things that made my veins feel like they were on fire? That they held me underwater until I nearly passed out and then repeated the process? That they  _ did _ things to me, cut me open to see how I worked and then sewed me back up feeling like a jigsaw puzzle? I can’t remember if they  _ put _ stuff in me or not.” 

 

His voice rose, and he cut himself off, taking a long, deep breath in before continuing, and Steve felt sick at his stomach. 

 

“Because I can go on. There’s more. I don’t feel normal anymore, Steve. The things they did to me… they didn’t just want information. They were taking soldiers and doing things to them. I saw some of the other ones, the ones that had failed, where they’d taken the experiments too far. They didn’t even look human, and sometimes I remember the  _ things _ they did to me and I wonder if I’m still human.”

 

“Stop,” Steve said, quiet. Bucky stopped and looked at him, and his eyes were unnaturally bright. Bucky hadn’t cried since he was fourteen.  Steve reached forward and placed a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky looked up at Steve, and he saw the trust, the years of friendship between them, and he dug his fingers into sinew and muscle, feeling for the bone. Bucky winced, pulling his shoulder back. Steve followed his motion. “Does this feel human to you?” He asked. 

 

Bucky clenched his jaw, and looked at where Steve’s hand was. 

 

“Because it feels human to me, Buck.” He pulled back, and Bucky relaxed the shoulder back into neutral position. They stood there for a few moments longer, and the hoot of an owl was the only thing that broke the silence. 

 

“I’m scared, Steve,” Bucky finally admitted, and that was no small feat for him. Bucky was always the brave one, the one who gave up his meals with his shoulders back and head up so that Steve could get his medicine, the one who never backed down from a fight, no matter how the odds looked for his favor. “What if I wake up one day and I’m not me?”

 

“You’ll always be you,” Steve said immediately. “Because I’m not ever letting you be anything else.” He’d noticed that Bucky seemed able to run faster, go longer, and he hadn’t thought a thing of it. But what if it was something? He didn’t let Bucky detect a trace of his hesitation, he couldn’t.

 

“Dammit, Rogers,” Bucky muttered, turning away. “This isn’t something that you can just will into being.”

 

“Well I can damn well try,” Steve said, stepping in front of Bucky again, and Bucky looked up at the profanity, squinting his eyes as if he was making sure that Steve was still himself. “And I’m going to be there with you every second until you’re sick of me because I’m with you ‘til the end of the line, pal, and there’s nothing you can do to shake me.” Bucky was looking down at his feet, and Steve reached out again, putting a hand on the side of Bucky’s face, and there was a clammy sweat clinging to Bucky’s skin underneath the days-old stubble. “Hey, look at me, jerk.” Bucky looked up at him, blue-grey eyes blazing. “You hear me? You’re not getting rid of me anytime soon, because I’m going to make sure that you’re okay.”

 

“I hear you,” Bucky said, letting out a breath that could’ve been mistaken for defeat, and Steve slung an arm around Bucky’s shoulder as they walked back to camp, because for once in his life, it was Steve taking care of Bucky and not the other way around. It felt damn good. 

 

The nights after that, sometimes Steve would wake to find Bucky crawling into his bed beside him, even though there was no room for both of them now that Steve was super-soldier sized. They never talked after the first time; they never needed to, because Bucky’s shaking body would be answer enough as to what was happening. Steve would just open the blanket and Bucky would arrange himself so that he was plastered against Steve--there was no room to do anything else--and the shaking would stop.

 

The first time it’d happened, Steve thought that they were being attacked, because there was a body close to his, pulling the blanket away, but then Steve’s eyes adjusted and he recognized Bucky’s eyes, wide, wild, grey. 

 

“Buck,” he whispered, quiet enough that he wouldn’t wake any of the others, “what are you doing?”

 

That’s when Bucky’s hand came down and splayed on Steve’s bicep as he balanced, hovering over Steve, and he was shaking. “You remember back when we had that apartment?” He asked, and his voice was much steadier than his hand. 

 

“Of course, Buck, we lived there for years.”

 

“You’d always get cold in the winters, and I’d push our cots together so that we could lay back-to-back,” he continued, and Steve frowned at him. 

 

“It helped my asthma attacks,” Steve said. “Yeah, I remember.” They’d done it for years when Bucky came over to Steve’s house; back when he’d had a house, and it only seemed natural that they continued the tradition. No one else was going to warm Steve up.

 

The hand on his bicep spasmed, and Steve reached out reflexively, hand covering Bucky’s. He didn’t remove it, though that would be the thing to do under normal circumstances. “I always slept better those nights,” Bucky continued, and Steve understood perfectly what he was asking. “God, Steve, I haven’t slept for months.” It was pained, so very pained. He nodded and rolled so that he was against the wall, and lifted the blanket so that Bucky could squeeze in beside him and only belatedly did he realize that he’d forgotten to turn so that he faced the other way, so that they could press their backs together, but it was too late now. Bucky hadn’t turned around either, and he wasn’t cold at all, but burning hot, just like Steve remembered. Steve didn’t protest. 

 

As his feet knocked into Steve’s shins and Bucky moved his arm so that he could pillow his head on it and almost hit Steve’s nose in the process, the hand that still clutched Steve’s bicep as if it were a lifeline slowly relaxed, and Bucky let out a long, slow breath that shook as much as his body was. “Thanks, Stevie,” he said, and promptly fell asleep, just like that. Steve found himself smiling slightly at that. He really could sleep anywhere.

 

It hadn’t just been the warmth that Bucky had provided back then. From the time he’d first found Steve shaking and shivering underneath the few blankets Sarah could afford and heard the way Steve’s lungs rattled, he’d climbed into bed without hesitation and taken Steve’s frigid fingers in his own, rubbing warmth back into them. He’d provided him with a presence that had been solid and always there, and Steve didn’t realize just how used to it he’d gotten. 

 

Steve held completely still, watching the tension bleed from Bucky’s face and the shakes to stop. His face became more relaxed, more like the person Steve remembered who would drag Steve along with him when they went dancing, not the haunted, gaunt-faced soldier he’d recovered from Hydra. What had they done to Bucky for him to bend his pride that much to ask for Steve’s help?

 

He found himself drifting off surprisingly fast, breaths slipping into Bucky’s as if they were one person breathing two sets of lungs like they had through countless asthma attacks over the years, and he only woke again from dreams strangely devoid of any of the  _ blooddeathfear  _ he’d known since he killed his first man to Bucky moving away, crawling out of the bed. He didn’t look back at Steve as he moved over to his own cot and started making it. 

 

There’d been no mention of it as the rest of the men got up and Steve and Bucky went to get breakfast, or as Steve went for a quick run around the camp, Bucky joining him on his second lap, or when they changed afterwards. It was only after they’d changed into uniform and were walking to report to Agent Carter and the other to make whatever plans that they would make that Bucky pulled Steve aside, looking at the ground instead of Steve. 

 

“Look, about last night--”

 

“I didn’t mind at all,” Steve broke in, and hoped that it hadn’t been too quick, that it hadn’t sounded  _ eager. _ Bucky finally looked up at him, grey eyes unreadable. When had Bucky’s eyes become such a foreign land to him? He’d been able to glance into his friend’s eyes and figure out an entire inner monologue before. Now? Not a chance. He nodded finally, and the continued onward and didn’t mention it again. 

 

Part of Steve was positive that Bucky wouldn’t repeat his action, but like clockwork, the next night he crawled into Steve’s cot, and Steve lifted the blanket almost expectantly, as if they’d been doing this for years. There was no room, but Steve didn’t mind. He didn’t mind at all, like he’d told Bucky, because he was fulfilling his promise and keeping Bucky sane, and himself, though he wouldn’t admit it. This time, Bucky curled against Steve like a cat, breath hot against the exposed skin of his neck where it met t-shirt, and his head half-rested on Steve’s arm. 

 

It was stupid easy to fall back into the pattern, and it was the best to see that Bucky was getting better. When Bucky woke up and they went out that day to save the world, there weren’t black circles under his eyes, and maybe his smile shone just  _ that much _ brighter and though Steve had no reason to, he slept better those nights. 

 

He was sure others knew; there was only so much someone could hide in a small confined space with the same people night after night, but it didn’t matter. Then men that slept in their tent would later become the Howling Commandos, and the ones who didn’t Steve never saw again, and they were loyal to each other and to Steve to the end. 

 

Steve would never tell anyone this, but in the cold nights and early mornings when Bucky crawled into his cot, Steve would pull him close and keep his arms around him, just because there was no one to see and no one to judge, because no one could truly comprehend what they had--what they were. There was no label for it, not a simple word or phrase that could describe them. Bucky would remain tucked into his chest, breath even and warm against his collarbone and neck nearly every night until the other soldiers showed signs of waking up, and they had to get up. Those nights were enough for him to be sure that no matter what, he would have his best friend with him-- _ until the end of the line. _

 

00800

 

Steve answered the call right as it came in, sitting down on the couch in front of the ridiculously sized flat-screen television in thefront room. The first time he’d seen a flat screen TV, he hadn’t even known what it was; thinking that perhaps it was some sort of darkened mirror. They’d barely been invented television when Steve had gone overseas for the war, and he’d gone down into the ice long before they’d become a commonplace staple of the American household. Sometimes, Steve truly felt like a man out of time. When Nat and Clint talked to Bruce and Tony about using the internet or a cellphone, Steve felt it the worst. At least Thor understood his disconnection somewhat, but he had been exposed to the technology much more than Steve had. 

 

Steve found Wikipedia and Urban Dictionary to by his new best friends when he wanted to decode the modern day slang that the Avengers threw around without thought. They didn’t do it purposely, it was just part of who they were, and Steve knew how hard it was to rid himself of his own slang. They laughed at it, sometimes, the odd expressions that had been so commonplace when Steve had last spoken to society.  _  A man out of time. _ That’s exactly what Steve was. 

 

A vaguely familiar face appeared on the screen, breaking Steve’s train of thought. He recognized the SHIELD headquarters, but the name of the woman--agent--that regarded him dispassionately from the other end of the screen eluded him. She pursed red lips at him, as if she was innately displeasured by seeing his face.  _ She’s just the kind of girl Bucky would’ve taken out dancing,  _ Steve thought, and the familiar pang that came along with the thought of his best friend was less potent than usual, and that’s when Steve remembered that Bucky was in that room in Tony’s lab, eyes closed and arm opened, machinery a tangled mess inside. 

 

“Captain Steven Rogers,” The woman said, and Steve smiled at her, keeping it just  _ this _ side of cool. She frowned and looked down, shuffling a stack of papers on her desk. “We recently received intel that you recovered the asset the Winter Soldier.” Where would they have gotten that intel? Steve wondered. He supposed that his walk back to the Avengers tower with a bleeding, broken man who sported a metal arm would’ve been hard to miss. 

 

“Yes,” he said carefully. They wanted something with him, and he didn’t like the tone the conversation had started off on if this was to be about Bucky. “He’s secured in a room with Tony Stark and Bruce Banner monitoring him.”

 

“He’s extremely volatile and unpredictable.” Her dark eyes finally darted back up to meet his, and there was no emotion in them. “It would be best to turn him over to us to avoid any unnecessary death.”

 

Steve opened his mouth to protest, but the door opened before he could formulate something intelligent past the immediate ‘no’ that sprang to his lips. He’d just gotten his best friend back, after years and years of believing that the only person that knew him the best was dead because of him. He wasn’t about to turn him over to an organization that may or may not kill him. 

 

Tony strolled into the room as if he’d been invited in and seated himself on the end of the couch, not looking to see Steve’s silent question. “We have him fully secured,” he said. “That will not be necessary.”

 

“Tony Stark,” the agent said in the tone of voice that someone might talk about a hated relative and a brief flash of anger contorted her countenance before she slipped the cool, dispassionate mask over it once more. Her deep red lips pursed harder and it looked rather comical. Steve hid a smile behind his hand. “This is not a discussion I am having with you. Fury said that I should contact Captain Rogers and discuss the Winter Soldier with him.”

 

“Well, sweetheart,” Tony said, the endearment dripping sarcasm. “You don’t have much choice because Steve here was just leaving.” Steve looked over at Tony, who kept his eyes on the screen. Why was Tony helping him? Why would he fight for an assassin who had murdered his father? There was no reason for Tony to do this for Steve, either. 

 

“I’m alright,” Steve said, figuring that Tony wanted a favor in return for this. Tony finally looked over at him, an exasperated look blooming on his face. He opened his mouth, but Steve cut him off, not looking back at the screen. “I’d like to listen in for a bit before I got get my hair cut.” He settled himself a bit more comfortably into the sofa, eyes daring Tony to say something. He simply rolled his eyes and turned back towards the screen. The agent waited, looking like she was sucking on a lemon slice. 

 

“We need the asset,” she said, still looking at Steve. He blinked at her and turned to look at Tony once more. 

 

“Why?” Tony asked, crossing his arms. 

 

“That’s not your concern.”

 

Tony tilted his head to the side. “Sergeant Barnes has almost killed a lot of my colleagues. It’s my goddamn concern.”

 

The woman sighed, rubbing her thumb and forefinger where glasses would rest on the bridge of her nose. “He has everything we would ever need to know about Hydra in his head. The Winter Soldier was one of their oldest operatives, one that took the hardest and most secretive missions because he was the best. We need intel on them--”

 

“I’m gonna have to stop you right there,” Tony cut in smoothly before she could finish the sentence. “Barnes has been injected with some sort of highly experimental serum for the last seventy-odd years. We haven’t even began to completely decode what all is inside of that serum, but we know this much from our first tests: it’s turned off the memory-saving center of his brain--which has been rewired, by the way. I don’t know about you, but I’d be pretty disoriented if I’d had thirty percent of my brain rewired with actual metal. We need time to figure out exactly what’s happening inside of his brain.”

 

“All the more reason to send him here with us. Who knows what they did to the asset’s brain or how it will affect him. We need to figure out Hydra’s secrets--”

 

“He’s recovering better here,” Steve spoke up and the woman’s eyes flicked back to him. Steve held her steely gaze. He’d looked into worse eyes before. “If you take him and shove him into some tiny room and experiment on him, Bucky’s mind won’t survive. He’s just escaped that.”

 

“He’s an asset,” the woman repeated, and Steve blinked, suddenly understanding.  _ They didn’t want Bucky to get better.  _ He was just something to use for information, for an end goal. He wasn’t anything at all to them, and that caused anger to boil in the pit of Steve’s gut, because to him, Bucky was damn near everything. 

 

“You’re not getting him,” Steve snapped before he really thought about it. The agent’s eyes lit with anger, and she opened her mouth to retort, but Tony cut in before she could start her sentence.

 

“He doesn’t mean it like that,” he soothed, standing, as if he could hide Steve behind him so the agent would focus on him only. 

 

“Damn straight I did,” Steve muttered. Tony shot him an exasperated glance, and Steve told himself to calm down. He was the one meant to keep a cool head, the one slowest to anger. But the thought of Bucky--the best friend he’d thought he’d lost and had just rediscovered on a complete twist of fate and recovered--being taken and treated like an experiment made his blood boil. He needed to  _ fix _ Bucky. 

 

“Removing Sergeant Barnes from Stark Tower isn’t advised at this time,” Tony continued as if Steve hadn’t spoken. “We are attempting to gain the same thing that you are, but with all do respect--” said quite sarcastically-- “your methods aren’t known to leave a person behind. Sergeant Barnes is a personal friend of Steve, and we all know what happens when Captain America isn’t happy with SHIELD.”

 

“Captain Rogers isn’t in the best place to negotiate anything with SHIELD at the moment,” the Agent said, and Steve felt a sort of cold slip down his spine. He wouldn’t get any help from them. “We have no need to honor any of his wishes.”

 

“If it’s the information you want, we can get it. Barnes has been writing in notebooks for days; he’s remembering on his own. If we can just have some time, he’ll present the information wrapped up in a pretty bow,” Tony said. 

 

“Why would we wait?” The agent asked. 

 

“Need I remind you of the Winter Soldier’s record?” Tony asked. “You’d have him for maybe a day before fifty to seventy percent of your personnel are dead are dead and the asset gone without a trace, like a ghost. Trust me,” Tony said, deadly soft. “You do not want to hurry him.”

 

Something serious, more serious than Steve had ever heard in Tony’s voice must have caught the woman’s attention. Her lips thinned and she leaned back. “Very well” she said. “A week is what I’ll give you.”

 

Steve opened his mouth to protest--Bucky needed more time than that, dammit--But Tony was already nodding. “I’ll let him know shortly,” he said, and the screen clicked off as Tony raised his arm, cutting the woman off mid-sentence. 

 

Steve stared at the blankness for a few moments, his heart plummeting into his stomach for some reason he couldn’t quite comprehend. “Why did you do that? You owe me nothing and I don’t want to owe you--”

 

“I didn’t do it for you,” Tony said and the look on his face was cold, hard and unforgiving. When Steve managed to meet Tony’s eyes, he flinched. He’d seen the same look in Nazi soldiers’ eyes right before he’d shot them. A hatred so primal it was almost mad. “And I didn’t do it for him.” He turned and walked to the door. It was open be the time Tony turned back around and left the parting words, “I want his information too. He killed my parents while I watched, and if we turn him over to SHIELD now I’ll never hear a word of it.” 

 

Then, Steve was looking at a Tony-less space, not sure what tumultuous emotion was going through his stomach and causing it to turn flips in his stomach, and for the first time since he’d emerged from that strange chamber that had turned him into a super soldier, Steve felt as if something was pressing on his lungs again. 

 

Steve took in a deep breath and let it out, and wondered what the hell to tell Bucky. Should he wait and tell him, or let him know from the start what was needed? The thought of an angry Bucky, grey eyes blazing and jaw set in that stubborn line Steve remembered all too well, and it set his feet into motion without him fully consenting to the movement. He found himself in front of the door he’d paced outside of for hours, trying to work up the nerve to go through, to sit beside his foreign-familiar friend, try to get the words out of his mouth, the ones he didn’t even know how to say.  _ I missed you, punk,  _ he’d wanted to say, but he’d ended up saying,  _ I’m sorry,  _ the last thing he’d wanted to plague Bucky with. 

 

The door was open, and Tony’s words echoed in Steve’s head.  _ You’ll have him for maybe a day before fifty to seventy percent of your personnel are dead and the asset will have disappeared without a trace, like a ghost. _ He looked blankly at the door, and the only thing his brain could provide was,  _ well that could be a problem.  _ The room beyond the door was very devoid of Bucky. 

 

He looked around wildly. Nothing seemed disturbed as if Bucky had fought his way out, but just as Steve relaxed, he caught sight of Dr. Banner slumped over a desk, and a cold fear shot through him.  _ This couldn’t be happening, he’d just gotten Bucky back.  _ “Banner,” he said and was across the room in an instant, shaking the man. 

 

Bruce let out a soft sound of protest and opened his eyes. His glasses were skewed, but he looked otherwise put-together and thoroughly annoyed at being awoken. “Do we need to go save the world again?” He muttered, “‘cause I’m not ready. I’m gonna need a few more hours of sleep--”

 

“Did you see Bucky leave?” He asked motioning to the open door. “Did he hurt anyone?”

 

“Hurt anyone?” Bruce blinked at the open door that steve was violently waving at and frowned. “Why would he? He was as close to stable as he’s been since we hooked him up to the machines when Tony told him he could leave. Well, as stable as a man whose party metal and has had his memories wiped repeatedly over the better part of seven decades.” 

 

“What?”

 

A frown pulled Bruce’s eyebrows together and then they rose, a look of understanding passing over his face. “Oh, Tony must’ve forgotten to tell you.”

 

“Apparently,” Steve said dryly. 

 

“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Cap. You’re supposed to be all apple pies and singing country.”

 

“I like cherry pie,” Steve said, confused, and Bruce actually laughed. 

 

“Sometimes I wonder what life was like for you.” He shook his head and then looked back up at Steve, face serious once again. “We let Bucky go on the condition that he didn’t leave Stark Tower and allowed us to monitor him constantly.”

 

“What?” Steve asked, gaping at Bruce. “Why?”

 

“Truthfully? I think Tony’s running more experiments on him in different situations with different stimuli,” Bruce said, sitting back down. 

 

“I’m by no means a science man,” Steve said dryly. “I was going to school to get an art major, but I had to take a few science classes in school and I thought I learned that you’re only supposed to test one thing at a time.” Bruce shrugged, tapping on the computer keyboard in front of him and muttered something about how Tony did what he wanted and then Steve no longer had his attention as several lines of code appeared on the screen and Bruce started muttering again.

 

Steve let out a breath and tried to calm his wildly jumping nerves and asked one more question. “Did he say something about where he was going?”

 

“Said something about getting some fresh air.”

 

That made sense. Whenever Bucky needed time to think he’d gone out onto the fire escape that had been their shitty excuse for a balcony and smoked. Steve’d woken up sometimes during the winters to find that he was shivering, Bucky’s warmth only a mere memory of a pressed-in pillow, and Steve would sleepily look up to find Bucky looking up at the stars, blowing smoke, and he’d always wanted to draw Bucky like that, so concentrated and with that thoughtful look on his face he’d only get when the thought no one was looking. He’d never gotten around to it. 

 

Bucky would always look around and find Steve blinking owlishly at him and given him that easy smile that made it all too easy for Steve to forget that Bucky could be deep--deeper than anyone else Steve talked to.  _ What’re you looking at, punk?  _ He’d ask, and Steve would always reply,  _ not your ugly mug, jerk,  _ and Bucky would mock-punch him and tell him to get back to sleep, and slip into the bed beside Steve once more, smelling of stars and cigarettes, pressing cold hands against Steve’s back until they became warm and he’d turn around, giving Steve his back. Steve felt the twinge of pain in his chest for the simpleness they’d had, before the war, before Steve became Captain America, before he’d lost Bucky. Before Bucky had become the kind of person Steve would’ve killed back in the war. 

 

“Thanks, Banner,” Steve said, and left before he could hear his reply if there was any. 

 

00800

 

Steve found Bucky perched near the edge of one corner of a balcony jutting out from the tower, arms wrapped around his knees as he stared out at the city lights. From the twitch of metal on his arm, Steve knew that his presence had been noted, but Bucky didn’t look over at him. Steve hovered uncertainly at the door, one arm still supporting it. He could go back inside still if he wanted. He let the door close and stepped fully out onto the balcony. 

 

He recognized the pose. He’d seen it often enough when it was too cold for Bucky to go outside and leave the door open, or when he didn’t have enough money to buy smokes. He’d see him positioned on the window seat in their bedroom, one arm wrapped around his knees and the other worrying around the air as if it were a cigarette, and he’d be looking outside. It was the way his too-long hair stirred in the breeze and the metal gleam of his arm that stopped Steve from approaching the otherwise familiar image. After a few moments, he settled some ways away from Bucky, the concrete cold through the fabric of his civilian clothes. 

 

Bucky didn’t look over at him, and all Steve could see beyond the curtain of hair was the tip of Bucky’s nose, one cheekbone and lips smoothed into a single hard line. He looked so familiar, so utterly  _ Bucky _ , but the metal arm and mop of hair was a reminder enough that if he reached out to touch Bucky’s shoulder it likely wouldn’t be welcome. 

 

Though he was still  _ Bucky, _ he wasn’t the boy Steve had grown up with, nor the man who had dragged Steve along with him some nights when he went dancing, setting him up with yet another dame who would end up ignoring him and Bucky would be the one to forcing Steve on the dance floor for  _ just one dance, Stevie, _ and laughing as Steve stepped all over his feet, but in the good-natured way that made Steve feel like he wasn’t a complete idiot. He wasn’t the soldier who had shipped out to Italy, the man who had joined Steve into the jaws of death with the Howling Commandos, or the one who’d crawled into Steve’s cot on the nights the ghosts that haunted him riled him into a cold sweat. 

 

No, this Bucky was an entirely different creature, one that Steve had absolutely no clue how to interact with. He didn’t know what a safe topic was, what would set Bucky off, possibly leading to yet another scene where Steve was on the ground and Bucky was choking the life out of him with that ungodly strong metal arm. 

 

“You didn’t need to apologize,” Bucky said and Steve looked over at him in surprise. “There was nothing you did wrong that day, you did everything you could. I know that, even if you don’t, you stubborn idiot.”

 

“Bucky,” Steve said, though it was more of a question. He paused and finally-- _ finally _ \--Bucky looked over at him. His eyes weren’t filled with anything at all, Steve could have been looking into a corpse’s eyes and would’ve found more emotion. “Do you remember?” He asked, even though he’d promised himself he wouldn’t push Bucky so soon. Not after last time. 

 

A frown twitched across Bucky’s face and was gone just as fast. “Your mom’s name was Sarah and you used to wear newspaper in your shoes.” If they had been any other two people, not friends seperated be nearly seven decades, not soldiers who had seen all kinds of horrors and had been deadened to them all, Steve would’ve likely started crying. He would’ve reached out and wrapped Bucky in a hug, face pressed to his shoulder as his heart alternately shattered and mended itself, because everything was finally  _ alright _ for once in a long time. But they were who they were, and so Steve just let out a breath at the pain-hope that exploded in his chest like gunfire and nodded. 

 

“Yeah, Buck,” he said, and they sat there for a long, long time without speaking, until Bucky suddenly stood and brushed flesh and metal fingers on his lap, and  _ looked  _ at Steve, taking in his face and skimming the lines of his body in a dispassionate way. 

 

“You haven’t changed,” he said. “You look just like you do in my memories.”

 

“Well ice can do wonders for youth,” Steve said, shrugging. He winced after his attempt at humor and Bucky simply looked at him.  _ And you’ve changed so much,  _ Steve thought, but he didn’t say it, couldn’t force the words past the lump in his throat.  _ I hardly recognize you. _ The Bucky he knew would’ve laughed at his attempted humor and rub his knuckles in Steve’s hair messing it up in the way he knew Steve  _ hated _ and would’ve called him punk. 

 

The need for that kind of familiarity made something in Steve’s stomach feel almost sick, and he got that breathless feeling again, as it was the winter of 1938 again and he was lying in bed and heaving in desperate breaths just to stay alive, just long enough for Bucky to come home with his medicine. He realized all at once that even though Bucky remembered, he didn’t compute the information as if it was his own. Not now.  _ Would he ever? _ The horror of the possibility of never getting Bucky-- _ his _ Bucky--back would’ve shown  on his face if he hadn’t turned away as quickly as he did. 

 

Steve blinked at the New York lights, still so foreign to him sometimes that he felt like he was suffocating underneath something he could hardly understand. 

 

To cover for his sudden movement, Steve began walking towards the door. “Let’s go inside, Bucky, it’s cold out here.” It was a lie; Steve only got uncomfortable at freezing, and even then, his body could take it without adverse effect. 

 

“It was colder than this,” Bucky said. “In Russia.” There was something desperate in his voice, something that turned Steve around. He looked into Bucky’s eyes again, and this time he saw some hint of…  _ something,  _ even though they were still so utterly foreign that it did something funny to his chest, he felt a slight flutter of hope against the cage of his ribs. 

 

“Russia is cold,” Steve agreed, and mentally smacked himself on the forehead.  _ Good one, Rogers.  _ When had he ever been awkward around  _ Bucky? _ His friend had been the best at making Steve feel included, comfortable, wanted, as if he fit into a specific Steve-shaped hole in his heart. He stood there awkwardly for a moment, Bucky blinking at him, as if trying to figure out why he’d said that. 

 

“Not as cold as the cryo chamber,” he added a moment later when Steve started shifting, considering turning away again and simply walking away. Steve grabbed for the new subject before he could fully think out the possible consequences. 

 

“Really? I thought they put you to sleep before they froze you,” Steve blurted. He’d read about them extensively while bed-bound in the hospital. It was mostly theoretical stuff, but the few known experiments had explained that if the mechanism was engaged before sleep was induced or occurred naturally, it could become very painful. 

 

“They needed me to be frozen as quickly as possible,”  Bucky said, and Steve just stood there, wondering what in the hell he could tell Bucky that could possibly measure up with the amount of guilt he felt. There wasn’t an apology long or eloquent enough. “Sometimes it was punishment. I remembered at the end of most missions, when I’d been out of the freezer too long. They’d only be able to keep my memories at bay for days at most.”

 

“Punishment?” Steve asked, his voice shaking. “They punished you for doing your work?”

 

“Sometimes I got violent,” Bucky said, and it was dispassionate, and Steve couldn’t find a single thing to say to that. He simply looked at Bucky for a long time, and Bucky looked away, as if he couldn’t stand to have Steve looking at him the way he was looking at him, but Steve couldn’t  _ help it.  _ They’d tortured him on nothing more than his  _ right  _ to remember who he was. Steve couldn’t imagine the terror of falling into unconsciousness with coldness surrounding him, freezing him solid. He swallowed and opened his mouth to apologize again, but he couldn’t find the right words so he closed it again. 

 

“Come on, Buck,” he said eventually when he decided that nothing he said could be of any help to Bucky at all. “You’ve gotta be tired. Tony’s letting me use this room that had a couch that does this thing where it turns into a bed, and you can sleep there if you want.”

 

For a minute, he was sure that Bucky would decline, that he would stay on this damn roof all night, but after a moment of hesitation, he nodded. “Thanks, Steve.” He didn’t quite smile at him, but something in Bucky’s face was soft enough to be recognizable, something not reminiscent of the innocent man who’d shipped off to war the first time; there was still too much of that haunted backdrop in his gaze for that, but it was more like the soldier Steve had saved from Hydra the first time. He hoped he could do it again. 

 

Bucky followed Steve to his room, and it was only later in the night when Bucky was lying out in the front room on that fancy couch with the fancier name, with Steve realizing that he could hear Bucky’s breath if he concentrated hard that Steve realized that he felt nearly whole again. 


	4. Chapter 4

00800

 

The first time Bucky woke up in Steve’s place, he thought he was dreaming. He did that sometimes, dreamt and then promptly forgot them when he opened his eyes halfway through the eggs-and-bacon-coffee-and-Steve smell, of looking around and seeing  _ sunlight _ coming through dirty window panes that weren’t missile proof, of the feeling of that sunlight sliding over his toes, when he was handed a gun and shoved out of the chamber before he’d fully de-frosted, and an agent came to brief him on the only thing that really mattered: how fast he could end someone’s life. 

 

He blinked a few times and tried to feel the cold beyond the warmth of the blanket draped over him and told himself that he wouldn’t feel anything at all. He couldn’t do this again, not again, not after last time--

 

“You’re awake.”

 

The voice should’ve undone it all, caused it to fall apart because for some reason, Bucky could never remember that voice when it was ten thousand miles away and seventy years dead, but when he blinked again, it was blue eyes above him, and he looked away because every time he looked into Steve’s eyes, it was a waterfall of things he should’ve forgotten or remembered. He could never remember which. 

 

“You hungry?” 

 

Bucky sat up and turned away from Steve’s inquiring eyes that voice that held so much hope, like a tiny bird, and all Bucky was good at was killing things like that. “I haven’t been hungry for a long time,” he managed to say, and Steve nodded like he’d given him a good answer, the kind of answer he actually deserved and went back to wherever Bucky was not. 

 

He hadn’t gotten a good look at the room last night. He’d been exhausted--he’d been up for days on end, writing and trying to figure out  _ what in the hell _ the tangled mess of his brain was. Steve was in some sort of sweat pants, so out of place in this modern century that Bucky took a second and third look just to make sure that it was really  _ him.  _

 

The freckles on his back was the only thing that was a constant. Bucky’d looked at them time and time again as Steve walked around their apartment in the summers with only his undershirt on, and those freckles, splattered on his body in such a unique pattern had been situated over shoulder blades sharp enough to cut, not shifting muscle. Bucky realized that he’d looked for that pattern in the splattered blood of the last seven decades without knowing what he was looking for, and no matter how much blood he spilled, it never splattered in that pattern.

 

Bucky remembered that he had told himself that he wouldn’t fall asleep, but his brain wasn’t doing the thing it had always done--that he could remember--where it reminded him to stay awake. 

 

Bucky looked away and focused on regulating his breathing. It was suddenly hot, so hot, and he wanted to run, to escape, because he was trying to piece together all of these pieces of himself, and they were all fractured into sharp pieces that cut his fingers in the process. He couldn’t remember if the fractured bits were actual memory or things that Bucky had made up or not actually seen, and it was all so confusing because he recognized so many things about the man standing in front of him, little pieces that would tease the edges of his memory, but he couldn’t remember the way someone was supposed to remember. Bucky didn’t want to know what it was like to be a whole person, not yet. He hadn’t been a whole person for a long time, and he wondered if he remembered how.

 

He settled for leaning against the counter, looking at Steve moving around the kitchen in a methodical way that spoke of doing it every day, and Bucky wondered what that could possibly be like. All he ever knew was the cold metal of a gun in his hand, warming up as he never let it down-- _ because good soldiers never let go of their guns _ \--and the two things situated in his mind from the time he woke up and looked into the face of the next person he would kill: target and objective. It was methodical, but not in the way Steve’s morning routine was, and Bucky got caught up in watching him eat an orange. 

 

Bland food, if any at all was what he received, and he wondered if he could taste food anymore. They’d removed and rewired everything nonessential. Bucky remembered overhearing their conversations occasionally, talking over him as if he wasn’t right there and conscious, thought he’d be staring at a blank wall and thinking of absolutely nothing at all. 

 

_ Cut his emotional responses down to minimum. We got too much collateral damage with this one and we can’t risk getting too much attention. Brainwash him after every mission; he’s gotten this mission confused with the last and called the target Martha. Don’t bother telling the asset the details, just give him a gun and the name and the objective.  _

 

Sometimes Bucky wondered if the crosshairs of his sniper rifle were seared into his retinas; if he’d see them every time he looked at someone. 

 

Bucky didn’t tell Steve a single one of these worries, simply observed Steve who was eating his orange and watching Bucky with the careful, attentive looks of someone who didn’t quite trust.. Bucky was glad; he didn’t think he could handle a Steve who was so easily forgiving. Staying in this cold, hazy mindset had been something Bucky had taken comfort in for a long time. He’d relied on the lack of emotion the lack of consequences, even if people told him constantly,  _ you’re doing miracles and helping your country. _ Because even soldiers woke up screaming at night sometimes, and it didn’t matter a damn bit if they’d done it all in the name of patriotism. 

 

00800

 

The days got better, Bucky found. The second and third times he woke up he wasn’t disoriented. The longer he went without the serum, the longer he could focus on something other than his sense of fight or flight. He woke up and his first thought wasn’t to reach for a gun that wasn’t there. 

 

Steve sat with him in silence most of the time. Bucky briefly wondered if Steve had anything to do, anything that Bucky was keeping him from doing, but when he asked, Steve waved him off in a way that was too fast and let Bucky know that he most certainly was. Steve adamantly refused to leave.

 

Sometimes Bucky would get up and walk around, doing a perimeter check around an area that he logically knew was completely safe. Logic didn’t touch fear, however. Sometimes Steve would get up and go somewhere for a few minutes at a time, and sometimes others came to the door. It irritated Bucky that they spoke in quiet whispers, as if Bucky couldn’t hear everything they were saying anyway. He wasn’t fragile like they were treating him. They would leave, and Steve would come back with that slightly guilty look on his face Bucky had yet to enquire about. He didn’t ask because he figured he’d hear about why Steve was looking like; that like he’d been caught with his hand on the metaphorical cookie jar, and on the fourth day, he finally relented. 

 

They were sitting on the couch and regarding the blank, dark screen of the television and Bucky was sure that it was a situation that would’ve been awkward. Everything still seemed slightly numb and he couldn’t tell. 

 

“The reason SHIELD let you stay here is because we--Tony and I--agreed to hand over all information you have about Hydra within three days,” he said, and it came out in a rush, as if he’d been wanting to say it all along. He looked over at Bucky like a kicked puppy, and Bucky swallowed, unsure of what to say in response. What would James Buchanan Barnes said? When Bucky didn’t reply, it sent Steve into another flurry of words. “I didn’t want to tell you right away because you were still unstable--” 

 

He was of course, referring to the first day, when Bucky had be some miracle been able to doze off on the couch while Steve was answering calls from Nick Fury regarding some, big, international crisis Bucky was purposely  _ not _ paying attention to. 

 

He hadn’t expected Steve to sit down beside him on the couch without making any other sound, just the dip in weight, the sudden presence of someone beside him, and he sure as hell hadn’t expected his brain to reroute the surprise through the Hydra tech, and before he could even override it he was on top of Steve, pushing him against the couch’s arm with his flesh hand, metal one wound to punch. Steve’d just blinked at him, looking a bit dazed, and then Bucky managed to  _ override, dammit  _ the tech and bit out a quick apology before going into another room to compose himself. He didn’t want Steve to see how badly it shook him up that even though he felt like his mind was his own, it wasn’t. 

 

Bucky felt a pang of anger go through him at Steve’s words and looked down to see hands clenched. He wished that Steve would stop treating him like something breakable. He’d been so confused when he’d first stumbled into Steve at the smithsonian, but he wasn’t anymore, and if he could just get his fucking brain to cooperate, he’d be considered at least clinically sane, and maybe he’d be able to remember things in the way people were meant to. He looked back up at Steve and saw the guilt splashed across the face that was familiar to him in disjointed ways, and wondered if he’d be able to look at Steve and see one thing, just colleague or friend.  _ Not mission. _

 

“If you don’t want to,” Steve continued, and Bucky saw he was lacing his hands together and pulling them apart and he was nearly knocked over by the image of those same hands, still the same size, but connected to bony, tiny bird-breakable wrists. “That’s fine, we’ll find another way, Bucky, we always do--”

 

“I think I can help,” Bucky said, and asked the computer Tony Stark called Jarvis to ask someone to bring him the notebooks. Steve waited in silence, lacing his hands together and pulling them apart again and again, and Bucky went to the door to thank Clint Barton for bringing them from Natasha’s room, explaining that she was out on a mission for Fury. Bucky saw the way Barton looked at him, as if he was waiting for Bucky to explode, and Bucky regarded him with similar distrust. People on edge set him on edge and he wondered how he’d put up with it for seventy years. He waited for the mindless impulse to kill, to see the crosshairs over Barton’s chest, to look for a way past his easy but defensive posture to snap his neck, but all he saw was a man, wary of him, but not a threat, not something Bucky had to eliminate. Not a kill-or-be-killed situation. 

 

“We didn’t look through them, although I think I saw Nat writing something in there,” were Barton’s parting words, and Bucky was frankly surprised. 

 

Steve looked between him and the notebooks for a long moment as he carried them to the couch and dumped them between them. “What are those?”

 

“When I was in that room, I think my brain remembered everything at once,” Bucky said. Steve tilted his head, and Bucky tried to search for another way to clarify. “What Hydra did to me--” he broke off and looked down, away from Steve and all that expectation, that utter and absolute  _ trust _ and wished that he could take the words back, but now it was too late. “They never took my memories away, I don’t think. It wasn’t exactly brainwashing, but it was close enough. They rerouted my brain to remember two things: mission and objective and everything else was irrelevant. When my brain started rerouting, the memories all came out in a rush and jumbled together and I couldn’t make any sense of them. I just knew I had to get them down somehow before they went away again.” 

 

Bucky took a deep breath and stopped talking. It had been a long time since he’d said something more than a few sentences at a time, and Steve was looking at him as if he was spewing the answers to the universe. He motioned to the notebooks. 

 

“Here they are, all of my memories.”

 

Steve looked down at the pile and frowned. “So they’re all here?”

 

“I think,” Bucky said and he opened the first notebook on the pile.  _ Steve got beat up in alleys a lot, _ the first one said, and Bucky slanted a glance at Steve, trying not to get lost in the memories of looking down at Steve, nose bleeding, lip spit, bruise darkening his eye or cheek. He looked at Steve, with the fading bruises from their last battle and wondered if he could ever remember things in a logical way. 

 

The next one reads,  _ The first person I killed for Hydra was ten years old,  _ and he remembered the confusion of the blood pouring out between his fingers as he crouched down beside the child, the daughter of some very important family that was looking to debase a Hydra center, and for a brief moment he had been himself and he had wanted to die. Then, they’d fetched him and when he cried, they hit him into unconsciousness and they wiped him again. He never let himself show emotion after that. 

 

“Okay,” Steve said, and reached out to take the next one on the pile. “I can help you with the memories before Hydra.” Bucky watched him take the notebook and pause, looking up with his hand on the cover. “Do you want me to help?” He asked. 

 

Bucky nodded and turned back to his notebook. “Just don’t comment on anything unless it’s pertinent,” he said and Steve nodded, as if he understood. If Bucky was lucky, he did. He watched Steve read down the first page, a slight frown pulling his brows together, but he didn’t say a single thing until he reached the bottom, and he looked up. “We can cut them out and tape them together in order,” he said and Bucky nodded again. 

 

And so, with a pair of scissors and some tape, Steve Rogers and the man who used to be James Buchanan Barnes reworked the life of a man who felt significantly less than that. 

 

00800

 

It took them all of the three days, but at the end of it, Bucky Barnes figured it went something like this:

 

When he was nine years old and full of righteous innocence, Bucky Barnes thought that he knew everything about everything. He knew that he was an orphan, that he had no home except for the orphanage. He knew that people looked at him and felt sorry for him, and he knew that he didn’t like that one bit. So Bucky Barnes did something about it. At six years old, he’d decided that he would shine bright enough that people wouldn’t think a damn thing about him except that he was goddamn  _ blessed. _ He laughed the loudest, smiled the brightest, got angry the fastest and was the first to throw punches in a fight. He was untouchable, a burning human torch of  _ light _ and brilliant emotions, and he thought that he was set. 

 

When Bucky Barnes was six years old, he met Steve Rogers. It was on a day that was otherwise monotone in comparison, nothing interesting standing out. He was about a month away from his tenth birthday, and the expectation was the only thing that he remembered from that day other than the peaches. The Sisters had sent him to get peaches at the store just to get him out of the orphanage before he tore it apart and because they never got any treats and they knew charm almost anyone into almost anything. Especially discounts. 

 

He was balancing half a dozen peaches, focusing on holding them in a way that wouldn’t bruise them when the sounds of a fight suddenly emanated from the alley he was walking be, the one just before the orphanage. Buck usually wasn’t interested--no one fought as good as him, after all--but this one captured his attention because all he could see was a flurry of painfully skinny limbs surrounded by a few tubby kids Bucky’d scrapped with before. He paused, squinting as the one whose name started with a ‘T’ wound his arm back for a punch and then the skinny kid was on the ground. 

 

“Come on, Rogers, say I was right and I won’t punch your face. Looks like you need your mug to stay pretty so you can make up for all the rest,” T-name said, and Bucky frowned. That was a new name, Rogers. He didn’t remember anyone in his class having that name. The skinny kid got up, and that’s when Bucky saw the split lip and the way his shirt was torn over one shoulder, and there was some sort of journal fluttering at his feet that he stood over like it was the most important thing to protect. He wrapped his hands into  _ really terrible _ fists and panted something that Bucky would later know as, 

 

“I could do this all day.”

 

T-name--Tommy, Bucky finally remembered--punched the skinny kid, Rogers. Bucky stood, watching, waiting for the kid to cry Uncle, for him to give up, but the goddamn punk had stood up again and raised his fists, and this time Bucky saw the bloody nose. 

 

_ Jesus Christ,  _ Bucky thought and almost expected Sister Agnes’ harsh reprimand, and he almost left the twit to his fate--almost--but then Tommy shifted slightly to the side and Bucky got a good, hard look at his eyes and the look in them. Before Bucky could fully comprehend it, Bucky was dropping the peaches and running into the alley, shouting some sort of battle cry and the boys--all three of them--turned towards Bucky?

 

“What the hell d’ya think you’re doin’?” Bucky asked, skidding to a stop just outside of strike range. 

 

“Stay out of this, Barnes,” Tommy said, sneering. He had a shiner on his cheek and Bucky looked over at the skinny kid approvingly. “Unless you want your ass handed to you.” Tommy had already turned ten, and he rubbed it in by cursing even more than Bucky, because as he put it, he  _ had the right.  _

 

“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size, pal?” Bucky asked and tightened his body for the fight he already knew was coming from that gleam in Tommy’s eyes, and the next moment the first punch came and Bucky lost himself for a bit in the glory of battle. He lost himself in the way pain seemed to make him more alive, because for each punch he took, he doubled his efforts and before he knew it, he was watching three bullies turn tail and run. He remembered the peaches as he turned and faced the skinny boy.

 

Bucky was panting hard and was high off adrenaline and when he smiled at the skinny boy--Rogers, it’s completely genuine, unlike most smiles he donned these days. Rogers, however, looked positively murderous. “What’d you do that for?” He asked, swiping a hand over his forehead. “I had him on the ropes.”

 

Bucky wanted to laugh at the defensive, angry look on his face, but he doesn’t. Instead, he tipped  his head down and gave him a smile. “Sure you did. What’s your name?” He asked, and reached down to recover the journal--sketchbook he corrected himself, as some pages fluttered and he saw the drawings. He blinked in surprise, intending to flip back from the blank pages currently face-up to look at the surprisingly good pictures, the ones he would later learn came from a Steve that was only eight at the time. Before he could do so much as brush his fingers across the creamy white paper, it was snatched away, and Bucky looked up to see the skinny kid skittering away to lean against the wall. 

 

“Don’t touch that,” he said, clutching the thing to his chest like it’s precious, and Bucky sees that it’s almost as big as him. The look on his face is damn near what it was when he was looking at Tommy, and Bucky doesn’t want this kid looking at him like that. He’s not the same as those twits. 

 

“Hey, hey,” Bucky said, holding his hands up in the universal sign of peace. “I’m just fixin’ to help a fella out.”

 

“I don’t want your help.   
  


Bucky sighed and leaned against the wall, and began working out the post-punch pain in his knuckles. “Tommy’s a wet blanket,” he said, slanting a look at the slighter boy. “And someone had to tell him that. You draw real nice.”

 

The boy was silent, looking hell-bent on scowling, but Bucky swore he saw the slightest hint of a smile as he shuffled the loose pages sticking out back into the sketchbook. Blood dripped down his face, and his hair--a dark, dirty blonde--stuck up in odd places as if he’d forgotten to comb it, and Bucky wondered why he’d intervened. He was all for saving pretty dames and lost puppies, but this little spitfire of a boy was neither a pretty dame nor lost. Then, he turned to Bucky and offered him a crooked smile that showed blood on his teeth. I’m Steven Rogers, call-me-Steve,” he said, and held out the hand that wasn’t occupied with journal, and Bucky remembered precisely why he’d stepped in. Bucky barnes was damn near infatuated with anything that burned brighter than him, and Steve was a luminosity class of his own. 

 

“James Buchanan Barnes, but my Ma called me Bucky,” he said, grinning again. “I have peaches to deliver to the Sisters, but you wanna come with? They have a mighty fine set of bandages and you can have one of my shirts.”

 

Steve smiled again, and Bucky realized that for the first time, he desperately wanted to make a positive impression on Steve for longer than just to get someone’s pitying attention off of him. His smile was like the sun, and Bucky wanted to revel in the warmth of it forever. “Thanks, Bucky,” he said and as Bucky went to pick up the now-bruised peaches and they walked back to the orphanage together, Bucky realized that Steve hadn’t even asked about his Ma, and it was the best part of the entire exchange. 

 

They got Steve all bandaged up and the Sisters let Steve have a peach after hitting Bucky’s already aching knuckles for bruising them and getting into a fight, but they let Bucky walk Steve home, so he couldn’t have been in that much trouble. 

 

They spent the walk talking about god-knows-what, Steve small and gangly in Bucky’s shirt and his eyes the brightest things Bucky’d looked into in a long, long time, and Bucky was crestfallen when they’d reached the house that Steve motioned to and said, “Well I’m home.” He’d scuffed his feet and didn’t move for a long moment, as if he was as hesitant to leave as 

 

Bucky squinted at the house and then back at Steve. “I like it,” he said, and reached his hand out like the Sisters had taught him. “Nice to meet you.”

 

Steve shook his hand, and then Bucky turned as if to leave, but then Steve called out, “Wait,” and Bucky felt his sinking heart fly up into his throat as he turned around. “Can I meet you tomorrow?” And with that simple sentence, Steve had set up the rest of their lives. 

 

They met the next day and the day after that, until it was to the point of being strange to not see each other, and Bucky could hardly remember a life that didn’t contain Steve Rogers. He was so fucking  _ bright _ that sometimes Bucky thought that he’d gone blind. He had such  _ life _ that sometimes Bucky was amazed at how much could be packed into such a small body, and it’d made him almost indestructible in Bucky’s eyes. It would always be Rogers and Barnes against the rest of the world. 

 

The first time that Bucky learned that Steve was sick, the kind of sick that kill people, he had to see it with his own eyes to believe it. It was the same day Bucky was introduced to the angel of a woman that Steve called Ma. It’d been the first day of school after the sun-drenched summer that had meant more to Bucky than any other summer before it had, simply because now he had a mission: to save Steve from himself and from the people he always managed to piss off be being a self-righteous  _ punk _ . But even though Steve was so utterly luminous, he was also incredibly breakable, and Bucky learned that when Steve started hacking up a lung as they started to leave the house to go to school. Bucky hadn’t known what to do, and so he simply crouched down beside Steve and wrapped him in his arms, and he was shaking, so sure that this bright spot was going to be stolen from him in the cruelest way. He didn’t even realize that he was crying until later. 

 

Apparently Sarah had seen what was happening from the window because suddenly Bucky was being shouted at by a blonde-haired woman with Steve’s eyes and Steve was choking out, “Ma, ma, it’s okay, he’s fine.”

 

“What did you do to him?” She ‘d been yelling, trying to pry Steve from Bucky’s fingers, but he was wrapped so tight around him that even post-serum Steve wouldn’t have been able to separate them, and then Steve was pushing him away slightly. 

 

“Buck, Bucky,” he choked, and then resumed coughing.

 

“Let go of him,” Sarah Rogers said, deadly quiet, and it finally managed to get into Bucky’s head, clouded with fear, and he saw that she was holding a kitchen knife, and Bucky Barnes let go of Steve for the first time in his life and held up his hands, feeling a streak of fear go through him. 

 

Sarah looked at him with murder in her eyes and reached down, stroking Steve’s face. “Hey, hey, it’s okay Stevie. I have your medicine,” and she presented him with a small device that had slowly became what Bucky’s worries revolved around in later years. Steve reached up and took it with a shaking hand, and sucked on it like it was air itself. 

 

“Ma, this is Bucky. Buck, Ma,” he said, waving his hand weakly after a few moments, and Bucky looked up at the woman again, and this time, she looked much less intimidating. He took in a deep breath and started coughing again, and took another deep breath around the apparatus. 

 

The fight went out of Sarah Rogers just like that, and she looked at Bucky as if he was a completely different person. “I’d become half sure you were someone Steve was making up,” she said, and Bucky noticed that she had dirt on her knees from where her dress had failed to cover her legs. “He’d talk about you, but you’d only be around when I was at work.”

 

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, ma’am,” Bucky mumbled, ducking his head and sticking out a hand.  Sarah had smiled and taken it, and told him to come inside and get something to drink. He’d wiped the tears off of his face and followed Sarah Rogers into the house. While Steve went to freshen up, Bucky had turned to Sarah. 

 

“What’s wrong with him?” He asked. 

 

Sarah looked down at him sadly. “Steve’s a very, very sick boy, Bucky. He has asthma and half a dozen other problems. I should warn you beforehand that the doctors say that he won’t make it to his teens, and I completely understand if you decide that you don’t want to be friends with him--”

 

“With all due respect, ma’am, You couldn’t keep me away from him if you tried.”

 

And Sarah Rogers had beamed at him then, and Bucky’d seen where Steve got that light, and for just a moment he thought he was in love with Sarah Rogers. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to him, James Buchanan Barnes.”

 

Bucky hadn’t understood what she meant when she said that he wasn’t supposed to survive. Steve was so  _ alive _ and always so  _ bright.  _ Sure, he’d gotten plenty more asthma attacks, but now Bucky had known what to do with them, and even though it was still warm, Steve’s lungs got worse and worse.  It wasn’t until that winter that he’d finally understood, as Steve got so weak that he couldn’t even get out of bed and when Bucky came to visit him, he found his friend looking as if he was on death’s door. 

 

Steve was pale and sweat dotted his forehead, and his breathing sounded worse than usual. Eyes flicked underneath uneasy eyelids, nearly transparent enough that Bucky could see the bright blue of his irises without him even opening his eyes.

 

Bucky stopped in the doorway, feeling dizzy. He’d never seen Steve so sick. Steve wasn’t supposed to hold so still, he was always moving; pencil moving over paper, beaming over at Bucky or snarking off at someone who deserved it completely, not lying in bed as if he was just a breath away from death. 

 

“If you want to go--”

 

“No,” Bucky interrupted Sarah sharply and then realized that’d been rude and turned to look at her. “Sorry, I want to see him.” Sarah inclined her head and quietly told him she’d be in the kitchen if he needed anything. It took Bucky a good minute after she left to set foot in the room, and another to approach Steve’s bed. He looked tiny and utterly breakable in the cocoon of blankets. When he finally managed it, he sat down on Steve’s bed, and the boy shifted, eyes fluttering open just briefly and focusing on Bucky before slipping shut again. They were fever-bright. 

 

“Don’t you have school or something?” He asked, and it sounded like he’d been coughing like he did sometimes, for hours on end until it tore up his voice. 

 

“It’s out, punk and I had to see you since your skinny ass is stuck in bed.” Neither of them mentioned the way Bucky’s voice shook. 

 

“Jerk,” Steve muttered, and then he fell asleep. At first Bucky panicked because he simply stopped moving and for a moment, he wasn’t breathing at out and when Bucky leaned close he was so still. Before he could call for Sarah, Steve let out a long, rattling breath and Bucky’s thumping heart released the pressure on his throat. 

 

“Jesus christ,” Bucky muttered, checking Steve’s pulse for good measure. Steve batted his hand away weakly, mumbling something unintelligible, and then he was still again. Bucky let out a long breath and watched Steve sleep for a long moment, feeling dread coiling in the pit of his stomach, twisting it and turning his lunch into something sour. He had to do something, he couldn’t just sit by here and watch Steve-- _ no don’t say that word.  _ He’d promised himself to never let anyone die under his watch again, not after Ma. 

 

Bucky was out of the room like a shot. He’d been in Steve’s house plenty of times by now and knew where Sarah was, and he swung around the corner as if he’d been doing it for years. “Mrs. Rogers,” he said, and to his mortification he found that he was almost in tears. “How can I help Steve?”

 

Sarah turned around from stirring some broth and frowned at him, and later Bucky realized that she’d been about to tell him that there was nothing that they could do for Steve, but she must’ve seen the desperate look in his eyes, and so she sighed and said, “I’ll get you a bowl and a wash rag and you can cool Stevie down. If we can get his fever to break, he has a better chance.” Bucky just nodded and followed her helplessly into the bathroom as she drew water and got a cloth out of the cabinet, and then back into Steve’s room. 

 

Steve stayed asleep as Sarah left and as Bucky readied the rag, only twitching when Bucky touched it to his forehead. “Ma,” he mumbled. “Don’t, I’m already too cold.”

 

“So I’m your mother now,” Bucky said dryly and swiped the rag across Steve’s forehead, and then his cheeks before Steve opened his eyes. “Don’t know know if I should take that as a compliment or not.”

 

“You’re still here?” He asked, sounding genuinely surprised. 

 

“I’ve got nowhere else to go,” Bucky said shrugging, and then Steve started coughing. Throwing the rag aside, he helped Steve to sit up, as Sarah had instructed him to do when they were at school and he started coughing to maximize his ability to breathe. He patted Steve’s back as lightly as he could and waited for it to pass. 

 

When Steve pulled his hand away, there was blood in his palm and Bucky drew in a sharp breath. Steve looked over at him, eyes unfocused. “You don’t have to be here for this,” he panted, and Bucky reached behind him to give Steve the rag. “I don’t want you to see me this sick.” He managed a small laugh. “It’ll ruin your keen impression of me.”

 

“Yeah, Stevie, I do,” he said, watching Steve wipe away the blood and tried to not panic. He wanted to answer Steve’s lightheartedness, but no matter how good he was, he wasn’t that good, and so he just put a hand on Steve’s shoulder and waited until Steve looked over at him. “I want to be able to be there for you whenever you need me, not just when you’re healthy.” He took a deep breath and looked into those fever-delirious eyes as he would for years afterwards and said the next words like plunging off of a cliff. “‘Cause I’m with you til the end of the line, pal, you hear?”

 

“I hear you,” Steve said, that look of surprise crossing his features again, and Bucky suddenly wondered if Steven Rogers had ever had a best friend before. Bucky hadn’t, so he didn’t really know how it worked, but he supposed he was doing just fine. Steve sent him a shaky smile and then laid down, and Bucky realized that he cared way too much about this boy to let him go. He would keep him in this world no matter what, because the world seemed to be a dull place without Steve in it and Bucky, being all of ten years old and so goddamn demanding, didn’t think he could take another moment of dullness. 

 

That night, Bucky Barnes prayed for the first time in a long time and really meant it. Either the god he didn’t fully believe in had heard him and decided to answer him, or Steve was one hard boiled little guy because it hadn’t even been a week and Steve was bouncing around again, bright as ever, and that’s when Bucky knew that Steve would always be alright. 

 

He got sick every winter and sometimes in between, and Bucky could count on two hands the number of times a priest had come to read Steve his last rights and Bucky’s heart would always flutter painfully in his chest as he watched Steve panting and sweaty and so pale he looked nearly translucent, but there wasn’t a single time that priest had come back to collect the body. Steve always pulled through and sometimes Bucky could’ve sworn it was because he’d climbed into bed with Steve and helped him break the fever, but maybe that was just Bucky’s mind doing that strange thing it did. 

 

The next time he looked up to notice how much time was when he was fifteen and Steve fourteen. While he’d hit puberty hard and grown out of his gangly awkwardness that had come at thirteen, Steve was still stuck at nearly the same size and if anything, he’d only gotten skinnier. When Bucky Barnes was fifteen, he kissed his first girl behind the teacher’s back in the schoolyard and he’d told Steve he needed to try it. Steve’d just shaken his head and said something about saving himself for marriage. 

 

Bucky’d noticed that the dames had started looking at him more and less at Steve. They’d always been dismissive of the shorter kid, but Bucky’d always managed to get them to notice him, until they didn’t. Until Bucky seemed to become the center of the attention, and being a social person by nature, he couldn’t simply  _ not _ talk to them. He always made sure that Steve was included, however, and when Steve muttered that, Bucky had stopped buttoning his shirt after changing it at the orphanage before going over to dinner with Sarah and Steve and looked at Steve in the mirror. 

 

“Aww, come on, Stevie, you’ll find someone who’ll notice how aces you are,” he said, grinning, and Steve looked at him, deadpan right back in the mirror. 

 

“Yeah,” he said, not smiling. “I bet.” Bucky was confused for a minute as to why he wasn’t smiling, but he brushed it off and ruffled Steve’s hair. 

 

“Let’s go, Punk. Don’t wanna keep your Ma waiting.” Steve swatted him away, but beyond the annoyed look, he was finally smiling, and that’s all that Bucky cared about. 

 

Bucky was sixteen when he gave it up, and Bucky supposed Steve was too, but Steve never talked to him about that sort of stuff. The only time he’d come across him doing anything vaguely sexual was when Bucky had started dragging Steve out to go dancing on the weekends--much to Sarah Roger’s chargin--was when he found Steve pressed against the wall and a girl who had dark hair and a too few curves for Bucky’s tastes, but Steve apparently didn’t think so. In that moment when Bucky muttered an apology and drunkenly went back inside without smoking the cigarette that Steve told him he shouldn’t smoke, Bucky’s viewpoint of Steve changed. 

 

He’d seen Steve as the boy who’d joined him in his fourth grade class, the same boy who’d woken up hard and hadn’t known what to do about it and ended up asking Bucky, blushing like hell, and Bucky’d laughed and told him  _ all about it _ and hadn’t that just been two years ago?

 

They were both so close to adults now that it didn’t matter that Bucky had one more year and Steve two. Steve’s Ma died of tuberculosis when Steve was nineteen, and it was the turn of the decade, and the war had just started. Both Bucky and Steve had lost fathers to the war, and they had no interest in the war coming to them. 

 

Bucky had to fight Steve to get the apartment; he fought tooth and nail because although he knew Steve didn’t want to depend on anyone, but he couldn’t stand to let him go, and he finally got him with the line that always softened Steve up. “Well you don’t have to,” he said at the end of Steve’s protest that he could get along just fine on his own. “Because I’m with you until the end of the line.” Steve was still exceptionally short, and easy to drape an arm around, almost as easy as a dame, but bonier and much less receptive. He let Bucky pull him to his side for a few moments before pulling away and going into the flat he’d downgraded to after his Ma’s death, a two bedroom almost as if he expected Bucky to live with him without asking. 

 

Steve opened the door for Bucky, and a new chapter of their lives began. At first things were fine, because it was summer and Steve was pretty healthy this year, and Bucky’s job let them get cream for their bran in the morning and butter for their boiled potatoes for dinner. 

 

They downgraded to an even smaller apartment--this time one bedroom with the kitchen and dining room and sitting room all in one--when the Depression hit Brooklyn the hardest in the tailside of the thirties, and Bucky had to either accept a pay cut or find a new job--and those weren’t plentiful at the time. That winter, Steve got sick again and it was worse than usual, and for the second time in his life, Bucky thought that he was going to lose Steve. He nearly lost his job because he didn’t want to leave Steve shaking and shivering on his own. He’d moved all his blankets to Steve’s bed the moment he’d started throwing up and didn’t bother getting in his own bed half of the time because Steve was  _ always  _ shivering. 

 

The only thing that got him out of the house was Steve weakly saying that they needed the money to make rent--and for his medicine, though Steve didn’t say that, and so every day Bucky dragged himself out of bed and got dressed he thought that he would come back to find Steve not saying anything at all, not even breathing. Bucky begged his employers to pay him be the day, but they said that they could only do it weekly and  _ if you ask one more time, I’ll kick your ass out. _

 

Bucky didn’t eat for three days so that he could have enough money to buy Steve the food he needed, even though Steve threw up every solid he tried to eat with blood. He remembered passing out on the third day and a shaking, weak Steve crouched over him, hardly able to hold himself up. 

 

“What the hell, Buck?” He wheezed and threw up blood all over both of them and Bucky couldn’t move fast enough to help him. When he’d finally gotten his wits about him, he carried Steve to the bathroom and he couldn’t stand up after that so he sat with Steve in the tub as the cold water poured down onto them and realized that it was only Wednesday and that he’d forgotten to pay the gas bill. 

 

Steve refused to eat that night until Bucky had, and the food lumped together in a pit in his stomach. Bucky wondered if he was sick with the flu that had been going around his workplace and if he could give it to Steve, and if that, combined with everything else wrong with Steve at the moment would be the thing to off him. He’d have let Sarah down then in the worst possible way. 

 

Bucky didn’t remember how he’d done it, but he’d dragged himself out of bed that Thursday morning before the sun was even up, leaving a sweaty Steve shivering in bed and changing his clothes. He piled his dirty ones on top of the blankets because that’s all they had and Steve wasn’t getting any warmer and if he shook too much it would set him off into an asthma attack and they didn’t have his medicine for that either. He forced some food down his throat because he knew that Steve would murder him if he passed out again because he wasn’t eating, and left Steve to work overtime. 

 

He didn’t know exactly how Friday came without either of them dying, but it came all the same and at the end of the day when he went to get his paycheck, he cut in line with one of the men he sometimes talked to while working, even though the Sisters would’ve frowned on it and the moment he got his chunk of change, and went to the corner store that had the kind of medicine Steve needed. He didn’t even care about the food even though they needed that, just got Steve’s medicine and gave it to him before he even took his boots off. 

 

So Steve got better  and the next weekend they went out dancing, and the economy recovered. Bucky got a better job after about a year and they had the small luxuries like Steve getting watercolors and gouaches to add color to his drawings, and Bucky could sustain his smoking habit better. 

 

Bucky transformed from awkward teen into a man comfortable in the skin he’d been given, the kind that girls had stopped giggling at years ago and started looking up and down with hunger in their eyes, and he was more than happy to oblige. In this age of plenty, Bucky partook of everything and anything female that would have him. He’d changed but it was almost as if Steve hadn’t.

 

Steve hadn’t lost that spark at all, that brightbright _ bright _ that had first drawn Bucky to Steve like a moth to a flame and he found himself getting Steve Rogers out of a fight every goddamn week like clockwork. Sometimes it was because some unknown idiot decided to offend Steve through being less than a gentleman, but more often than not it was someone they knew, or someone who’d said something about him or Bucky. Especially something about him  _ and _ Bucky. Bucky knew the queers existed and he knew that there were two men who lived together like a man and a dame usually live together in their building and Bucky pretended not to hear the squeaking sounds from an old bed that happened some nights. 

 

Bucky didn’t mind, he was a bit of a romantic that way because he believed that if people loved each other--really, truly loved each other--they should get to express it however they pleased, but when it applied to him and Steve, he felt a spark of anger because people assumed that they could contain what he and Steve were in a single word. One that was wholly inaccurate. Sure, there were things that went on that not everyone would understand, but that was why they didn’t talk about it and why Bucky found that he didn’t look to hard at everything they did. 

 

They didn’t speak of many things. Bucky knew that they had a very unique relationship and he knew why the people said the things they did, because if someone would observe their day to day life, they would see how differently they lived. That was why they didn’t talk about it. They didn’t speak of the way that they sometimes woke up. Bucky knew that they’d fallen asleep back to back, but sometime in the night they’d both turned and Bucky woke with limbs tangled in Steve’s too many times to count, and he didn’t think too hard on the times he didn’t move away, just laying there and watching Steve’s eyes flutter beneath his eyelids and feeling the rapid, irregular beat of Steve’s heart against his. He would reassure himself with that feeling that Steve was  _ real  _ and  _ alive _ until Steve shifted and Bucky, being the damn coward he was, pretended to still be asleep as teve carefully untangled himself and got up in a way that was meant to not wake Bucky. 

 

They didn’t talk about the times that Bucky found himself in Steve’s bed in the first place, because Bucky knew that it went beyond keeping Steve warm. Steve never protested, not once, when Bucky slid into bed beside him on a hot summer night, just muttered something about him taking up too much room, but offering his back all the same to be pressed against. 

 

They didn’t speak of the times that they woke up in a different arrangement, something that would also happen much too often. Bucky would wake and press himself against Steve without thinking, cock to ass before starting from that confusing place between dreams and reality and wondering  _ what the hell he was doing. _

 

They definitely didn’t speak of the times they’d walked in on each other getting off, as was bound to happen with two young men living in a single-bedroom flat. Hell, it was the only thing that could make Bucky blush anymore, and he wondered why because he’d gotten blown in an alley behind the bar he’d gone dancing in just last week. Maybe it was because he always remembered the time Steve had looked up at him as Bucky opened the door and choked out his name as he came, half in surprise and half something else that Bucky refused to look too closely at. Bucky’d had to leave and take a  _ long cold _ shower and had most definitely not dealt with his hard on by picturing flushed cheeks made of angles and blue eyes.  

 

They never spoke of the way Bucky laid himself out on the ratty old couch and unbutton his shirt for Steve to practice his drawing skills and Steve would look over the lines of his body in a way that artists most definitely didn’t normally. At least, Bucky thought so; he’d never actually met an artist other than Steve. 

 

“Like I want to draw your ugly mug,” he’d say, and they ignored the way his voice shook as Bucky took his shirt off one button at a time, and Bucky would look at him like he’d look at the dames and smile slow-like, shrugging his shirt off, and Steve would always break the tension be laughing. 

 

“Just draw me, Punk, I don’t see anyone else lining up to be your muse,” he’d said and Steve’d put pencil to paper and call him  _ jerk  _ but afterwards anyone who’d looked at the pictures would see that Steve crafted all that made Bucky himself with the type of love that was reserved for lovers. But that wasn’t what they were.  There wasn’t a single word that could describe their relationship, and Bucky had never once thought of Steve like that, not as a whole, anyway. 

 

Then the war came when Bucky was twenty-something, and Steve, being the self-righteous punk he was decided that he wanted to beat up every single person who's done wrong by the United States by joining the army. 

 

Bucky told himself that he didn’t want Steve going into that recruitment tent because he knew Steve wouldn’t be accepted, but the irrational part of his mind couldn’t even comprehend the loss he would feel if the army took Steve away from him. He couldn’t stand to lose Steve to some fucking Nazi or Jap. 

 

All the same, he started taking Steve with him to the gym because he’d gotten a raise awhile back and they could afford those small luxuries like that because they were still living in their run-down three-room apartment that has windows that rattled at night and let in all kinds of cold air. 

 

Bucky was almost surprised to find himself accepted to the army, while Steve got his dreaded--but much expected--4F stamp, and Steve took him out to celebrate that night without any jealousy, and Bucky remembered why he loved Steve. 

 

“You must have someone who thinks you’re worth more than just a sack of beans, jerk,” Steve said, raising a glass to Bucky and clinking it with his and downing it in a surprisingly practiced action even though Steve hardly came out with Bucky anymore, and Bucky found himself staying home even more just so that he could keep an eye on Steve and make sure that he wasn’t going to keel over and die somehow. 

 

“I must,” Bucky agreed. “Punk.”

 

Steve just smiled that lopsided smile, and for a few hours Bucky thought that everything would be okay. That night he woke to Steve shaking, but his lungs weren’t rattling, so Bucky didn’t move, simply sat there, eyes open to the wall where Steve had hung his best drawings and listened to his best friend silently sobbing. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen Steve cry. 

 

In two weeks Bucky shipped out. Leaving Steve was the hardest thing he’d done, and he told Steve that he’d better write him  _ every damn day or I’ll have assumed you’ve died, punk. _

 

_ I’m not writing you every day, Jerk, I need to go to work and cover for your ass not being here,  _ Steve’d responded at the train station, and they’d hugged as if there was no tomorrow and Bucky took the eternity that they stood, arms around each other as if waiting for the other to let go and soaked in the  _ aliveness _ that Steve was and committed the sound of Steve’s heart irregularly beating against his. Then he’d gotten on that train and hung out of the window and waved to Steve until he couldn’t see him anymore, and it felt like something in his chest was shattering. 

 

Steve wrote him every single day at Basic and told him about the little parts of his day that had stood out. The soldiers commented that he must’ve had someone that loved him mighty fine back home to write with that sort of dedication, and Bucky just gave them a half-smile and said, “I guess I do, don’t I?”

 

At the age of twenty-something (Bucky’d stopped counting because he wasn’t celebrating birthdays with Steve anymore) in the middle of Georgia mud, Bucky Barnes fell head over heels for violence. He’d been up in arms about going so far away at first, but it was better that way he supposed. Three months out of Brooklyn and Bucky couldn’t recognize himself in the mirror anymore and he didn’t think that anyone back home would either.  

 

Steve had always been the one who was excellent at the things worth being excellent at. He was an intellectual at heart and could spend days shading something so that it looked damn near photo realistic. Bucky had excelled at charming the skirts of dames right off. Now, Bucky excelled at shooting. 

 

“You’re a damn good shot, Barnes,” his commander at Basic had told him, slapping him a little too hard across the shoulder, and it was impossible to miss that his eyes were dead. “I’ll put in a good word for you at HQ, get you on the front lines. You could do us some real good sniping those Nazi fucks.” Bucky hadn’t known what to say in response to that, so he simply pasted a smile on his face and thanked his commanding officer, and not told Steve in his next letter that it was possible he’d be sent to the front lines because that’s where soldiers died. 

 

He’d been forced to, though, some weeks later when his letter came and he’d be spending time in Georgia and then Italy, and Steve would notice the changes on the post stamps.  _ It’s not a big deal,  _ he wrote Steve.  _ I’ll probably by picking up trash for the other soldiers.  _ He was terrified to tell Steve that he would kill people and hurt them, even if they were the enemy and they’d done wrong by us. 

 

_ I can tell when you’re lying, Buck,  _ the response came the day before he shipped out.  _ Even if it is in a letter.  _ He could almost picture the disapproving frown Steve would get--the one he must’ve learned from his Ma--as he penned that, and so Bucky sent him one of his dog tags even though it was illegal because he didn’t want to leave on such a sour note. 

 

It was in the Georgia mud that Bucky, newly named Sergeant for his impeccable sniper tally,  took his first shot at an enemy soldier. It hadn’t been that time that Bucky’d fallen in love with the feel of the trigger. He’d thrown up as he watched the man die through his scope, realized that he’d just drastically changed that man’s existence because one minute he was there and then the next he wasn’t. It wasn’t the second or the third, or even the fifth. 

 

It was the day before he left for Italy that he’d seen the man raping a woman through his scope and his target was fifteen feet away. He’d taken the shot, but it had been the wrong shot, and the man had fallen on top of the woman, blood soaking through her dress. He could’ve sworn that she looked straight at him and mouthed a thank you, but he was already moving onto the target he’d been meant to shoot, who’d seen the man fall and had bolted. 

 

He’d been reprimanded, but Sergeant Bucky Barnes didn’t care because he’d found his love for violence and he no longer found himself waking with tears in his eyes because he’d killed someone. He loved the way he could end a life--a life that needed ending--from hundreds of yards away and he’d never be caught. He was an angel of death, and Bucky Barnes wore the blood on his hands like a medal. 

 

Steve’s letters stopped coming halfway through his time in Italy. They’d begun their march to Germany some time ago, and Bucky hoped that Steve was still sending the letters to the wrong address, hoped with all his heart that his letter that let Steve know where he’d be hadn’t made it, because he wouldn’t-- _ couldn’t _ \--think about the possibility that he was sending letters to a corpse. 

 

The mission shouldn’t have gone wrong. It was an easy mission on a day like any other, and while marching to the enemy weapons facility they were meant to blow up, Bucky’d been thinking about what he’d eat for dinner tonight and not about who he was going to kill. He wasn’t killing anyone today. No, he was supposed to hit fuel tanks and ignite the whole place without killing anyone in his platoon. 

 

But they hadn’t expected Hydra. They hadn’t even known Hydra existed in this place, and so the mission that they were sorely underprepared for went to hell in a handbasket, and Bucky found himself looking at a black-masked figure through bars, and for the first time since joining the army, Bucky found that he had a real fear of death. 

 

It was something that always hung over his head, but it had always driven him to be  _ better  _ and  _ faster _ so that he could outrun death, but now it was nipping at his heels, reminding him that no matter how fast he ran, he’d never by fast enough. When they worked on whatever machinery Hydra was building to eradicate the world, Bucky thought that it was over for him, but then he got sick like Steve used to get sick and they put him on the table. 

 

“What’s your name?” The doctor with a heavy german accent would ask him over and over again, and he would repeat it. 

 

“Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, 32557038,” and they would ask him other questions and he’d give that answer because that was the only thing he knew was safe to tell them. They would ask him if he knew anything of pain and he’d say that, and he’d scream it as they drilled holes into him and injected him with stuff that made his veins feel like they were aflame, and he couldn’t scream loud enough because the doctor didn’t like excessive noise and had him gagged. 

 

He was so sure he was talking to air sometimes because there wouldn’t be anyone asking him anything and he’d still by repeating that, over and over and over again as if he could imprint the very essence of himself on his own skin just so that he wouldn’t lose it. Memories seemed to be slipping further away every day until that was all he was, a name and a number and pain, and-- 

 

“Bucky?”

 

He hadn’t heard that voice for so long that he’d nearly forgotten who it was. When he opened his eyes, he decided he must’ve heard wrong because the person he thought he’d heard wouldn’t be here in the first place and it had to be hallucinogens they’d given him because that person wouldn’t look like  _ that. _

 

“Oh, my god, Bucky,” the stranger with Steve Roger’s voice said, and when Bucky blinked past the perpetual haze of pain he was always in now, he saw that his eyes were exactly the same. 

 

“Steve?” He asked and his voice broke halfway through. What the hell was going on with his heart? Before he could ponder the sudden ache that cracked its way through his chest, Steve was pulling the restraints off as if they weren’t reinforced and Bucky’d been trying to get through them for weeks. 

 

“Yeah, Buck, it’s me.” He lifted Bucky off of the table as if he weighed damn near nothing although he was a buck sixty last time he checked and Steve’d been almost half of that. 

 

“What happened to you?” Bucky asked, looking down at his best friend’s chest, broad and strong, no more bird-breakable-bones. 

 

Steve tilted his head to the side, a sort of half grin on his face that looked almost giddy, and Bucky felt it echo in his chest, because Steve was  _ here,  _ Steve was  _ alright,  _ and Steve just happened to fit his too-big hands now. “I joined the army.”

 

Bucky winced. Everything in him hurt. He felt as if he’d been cut up and repatched together the wrong way, and Steve wanted him to run-- _ to leave him behind _ \--and Bucky couldn’t. Even though it was clear from the few minutes they’d spent together again that Steve was more than capable of taking care of himself now, when Steve told Bucky to get out when everything was falling to fire and ruin around them-- _ ironic, isn’t it? This is what you were supposed to do _ \--Bucky responded almost violently.

 

“No, not without you!”

 

Bucky didn’t think he’d felt desperation quite so deeply before; not back in Brooklyn when Steve was dying in his bed, or that time he’d found Steve bleeding out in an alley. He’d never felt it quite so  _ much _ and it scared him. Steve had to have seen something in his eyes, because he bent the metal of the rail back and jumped, and somehow,  _ somehow, _ they made it out there alive, and Bucky was watching his best friend walk beside him like it was just another day they’d gone out dancing. 

 

Every time he looked over at Steve as they walked back to base, every time Steve turned those eerily similar eyes on him-- _ down now instead of up _ \--he got a little more used to Steve’s new body. He took in the way it moved, much easier now, more sure, and he wondered just what the hell Steve’d gone through to get  _ here _ of all places. 

 

Steve finally smiled. It was near the camp, and Bucky’d gotten a sick feeling in his gut when Steve kept looking over at him, face unreadable, so foreign yet familiar at the same time. He wondered if he really looked like that much of a mess. He wondered if Steve could tell that he’d broken only just minutes of torture and screamed and begged for death and that’s why he was looking at him like that. He wondered if Steve would want a broken man as a friend. 

 

When he smiled at him, it was as if the world was okay again, because Steve was reaching out and putting his arm on Bucky’s, just a light touch, but Bucky nearly dropped to his knees because he’d forgotten what it was like to feel anyone touch him with such gentleness, such friendship. And so, when he yelled, “Let’s give it up for Captain America!” It was completely from his heart, and it didn’t even matter that he was looking at Peggy Carter with the same kind of intensity he used to look at Bucky with. Not then, because he had Steve back and Steve still wanted him and he wasn’t broken, at least he didn’t think completely. 

 

(Sometimes he wondered if his mind was really as fractured as he thought it was.)

 

When he’d crawled into Steve’s bed that first time it’d been almost natural. He hadn’t even thought about it, hadn’t even considered that they wouldn’t fit because Steve was supersoldier-size now, not Steve-sized. Steve hadn’t protested, though. Steve never protested.

 

He got to fight by Steve’s side, and even though it terrified Bucky beyond measure that he could no longer protect Steve--because Steve was yet again better than him and an outranking officer, something he used against Bucky to get his way too often for the punk to get away with it--at least he was  _ with _ Steve. For the first time since he’d fallen in love with the violence of killing people who deserved it he was happy at war 

 

It wasn’t the first time he woke up with Steve pressed up against, nor the second time, nor the tenth that Bucky realized just what it was that fluttered underneath his chest the moment he felt Steve’s arms around him at night, the way they kept the nightmares at bay. 

 

It was a night like any other and they were out to start a mission the next day, the kind of mission that could completely change the game for them because they could capture the doctor that’d turned Bucky into a broken soldier, one who woke up screaming and apparently had put all sorts of utterly  _ wrong _ thoughts into Bucky’s head. 

 

The next time he’d jerked off, he’d come with Steve’s name on his lips and the thought of blue eyes looking up the line of his body, shimmering on either side of his single dog tag, and he was bewildered and so very disgusted by what he felt that he’d thrown up afterwards.

 

He hadn’t told Steve, of course, because he couldn’t corrupt Steve--perfect, spotless Steve whose definition of intimacy was a kiss--with these wicked,  _ dirty _ thoughts. God, Hydra had really  _ fucked  _ him up, and the day before Bucky’d wished he’d died, Bucky wondered if it was safe to be around Steve. 

 

When he’d fallen, Bucky knew he could’ve reached out faster for Steve’s hand. It had been that moment of hesitation that had caused him to fall, but he hadn’t thought it would bring him death, and as he fell, the last thought he had was that he couldn’t protect Steve if he was dead, and what they said about suicide survivors must’ve been right, because Bucky hit the ground consumed by regret. 

 

The regret continued when he opened his eyes to a Russian soldier, and surely this couldn’t be heaven because he was seeing a line of red where his numb arm used to be, and he couldn’t move the nonexistent fingers. They’d taken a saw to that, and they hadn’t bothered putting Bucky under, and it ended up being the pain and the screaming that’d caused him to go unconscious

 

“Sergeant Barnes,” the voice of the nightmare Bucky thought he’d woken up from murmured, soft as a lover’s pillow talk and Bucky wanted to die. He opened his eyes to metal fingers and the strange numb-half-feeling that the arm gave him and used the hand to choke a doctor. “You’ll be the new face of Hydra.”

 

It was only then that Bucky realized that he’d dreamed the entire thing or that Dr. Zola had planned this from the beginning, because Bucky was an  _ asset _ and assets didn’t escape. 

 

The first time they froze him, Bucky thought that he was dying, and it was only ten years later when he emerged from that icy cocoon from endless dreams of unrest and asked to see Steve that they decided they needed to wipe him, and then Bucky knew for sure that he was dying, hoped to god that he was. 

 

The brainwashing worked, because the asset woke with only a mission and a target, and a gun pressed into his hand, crosshairs already bracketed around a small head with blonde pigtails, and redredred as he shot her, and he remembered that his name was James Buchanan Barnes and he was only supposed to like killing the people who deserved it. 

 

The brainwashing worked again and longer. He completed the mission and was well into debriefing before he broke down into rambling nonsense, and they’d beat him bloody and then he’d healed because they gave him something for that a long time ago before they’d frozen him the first time, and then someone who seemed to be in charge of things decided to tuck him away for a bit longer. 

 

Bucky Barnes forgot his name the second time they froze him, but he remembered it the third time. It took two more freezings and half a dozen treatments for him to forget his name and his need for a cigarette and that blonde-haired, blue-eyed man who seemed to always dance at the edge of his memory until it just faded like everything else had. 

 

The Winter Soldier remembered strange things sometimes, things that caused him to hesitate, and he’d be reprogrammed, and he’d hear the people talking about rewiring his brain, and they patted themselves on the back when he completed a mission without a hiccup.  _ The machinery was working perfectly.  _

 

Then there were the times he didn’t work properly, when he’d remember a name and a number and a face that shouldn’t have meant as much as it did to him, and he’d get violent and they’d make sure to give him extra treatment to keep him complacent. He didn’t remember the times because the serum didn’t let him. Every time afterwards, he felt an aching loss, distant and numbed like his fingers and toes that were eternally cold. It disappeared too and he didn’t wonder what he was missing. 

 

And so the asset became the most valuable assassin to Hydra. He wove in and out of history like a ghost, killing and leaving carnage behind, creating collateral because he’d never been told not to and killing not as cleanly as he could have because killing was his art and blood was his paint and he wanted to paint the world red for Hydra. 

 

Mission, target, wipe, repeat. Freeze.  _ Who is that face _ ?

 

_ Reroute. Regulate. Failure Reboot.  _

 

Soon, the asset was more machine than man, and he hardly felt anything anymore, and stopped wondering why there was moisture on his face after he unloaded his chamber into the mission, because there’d stopped being moisture on his face, and he was a machine, carrying out the orders. It didn’t matter that he was cold, because machines didn’t get cold. 

 

_ You’re a miracle. You’re shaping the century.  _ He didn’t know why they bothered to tell him. He was the  _ asset _ and he had two objectives: target and mission. He would complete his missions and go into the cryo chamber without question because that’s what the asset did. The asset followed orders. They called him the Winter Soldier, and he was the best that Hydra had, and he was shaping the century, and--

 

The man on the bridge called him a name. “Bucky?”

 

The man on the bridge had been the only one who he had been ordered to take out and hadn’t. He’d frozen. He knew he’d be punished, but there were memories that he didn’t remember existing, and The Winter Soldier wondered if it was possible that he was a person and if he wasn’t broken. 

 

“But I knew him,” he said later, the first defiant thing he would have said in nearly seven decades, and he’d been treated roughly, but he didn’t forget. He tried to forget, because the possibility that he had been a person, a person with a conscience and with a connection to the man on the bridge, how would he come to terms with the fact that he’d killed, and killed, and killed, and hadn’t thought twice about it?

 

The harder the asset tried to forget, the more his mind fell apart. The delicate bindings keeping his mind on two things:  _ mission and objective _ were slowly unravelling, and he didn’t know a damn thing to do about it. They’d been hesitant to send him out on his last mission to  _ finish it.  _ He was erratic and unstable and no matter how many times they wiped him, he remembered that name and that face, and the way it had seemed to have been said to him over and over again a long time ago. As if it was his name. 

 

He’d faced down that ghost in the helicarrier with all intentions of killing him, of putting this terrifying realization to rest so that he could go back and sleep until he forgot again and woke in the perpetual numbness that he hadn’t realized he’d come to depend on to keep him steady, but the man on the bridge had said something that brought a waterfall of memories that made him  _ feel _ all at once. 

 

“I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.” Then he’d dropped into the Potomac, and the asset had found himself chasing him, wanting whatever it was that those words brought him, because in and amongst the darkness and confusion, there was a bright ray of hope. Bucky--that was his name, wasn’t it?--wanted that hope. He was a greedy asset--man and he wanted it all. 

 

He wandered for an indeterminate amount of time, and it was as if he was alternately shattering into a million little pieces and waking from a long, long dream. His mind couldn’t decide, and he found himself blacked out in an alley too many times to count. 

 

It was chance that he found himself at the exhibit staring at a picture of a face that could have been him, maybe in a past life. That face knew nothing of violence or death and Bucky had suddenly ached for that kind of simplicity and then Steve--Bucky thought that was his name--found him and the memories had all poured down again, all of them jumbled together in an incoherent mess and he’d lashed out. 

 

The rest, well the rest Bucky remembered just fine and he didn’t need to write that down. 

 

James Buchanan Barnes, age thirty-one by the scientist’s books and ninety-seven by history’s records looked up at Steve from across a wall of scribbled notes taped together haphazardly and let out a breath that took with it all of the tension in his body because he finally remembered, and Steve smiled at him because he knew it, and Bucky sank to his knees and allowed himself to cry and allowed Steve to wrap him in a hug that he knew all-too-well. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, please let me know what you think, tell me of any mistakes you find (this is completely unbeta'd and I haven't really gone back for a thorough edit). All thoughts appreciated!!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Stucky actually starts being acknowledged, but not really.

00800

 

“You’ll find all of the needed information,” Steve said to the agent, motioning to the manilla envelope he’d stuffed papers into, and she looked at him for a few more moments than necessary because he’d taken a rather snappish tone with her. He wasn’t in the best mood, Steve had to admit. He’d been running on three days straight of nothing but Bucky and coffee that really did nothing to keep him up because he metabolized it too quickly. 

 

“Thank you, Captain Rogers. I still advise that you turn him over to us for further--”

 

“You have your information,” Steve said, looking out at the cool, misty day and narrowed his eyes down at her. He wondered if he should attempt a run or if he should sleep first. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to go piece together my best friend.”

 

She didn’t have the good graces to look ashamed, just pressed her lips together in a line and took a step out of the apartment and Steve slammed the door a bit too hard. They’d moved to the apartment the day before. It was near the one that Steve had stayed in before, and someone had came and moved all of his furniture for him, and after Steve had told Tony about The Winter Soldier’s mission to kill his father, Tony had said that he had exactly half an hour to evacuate Stark Tower before he shot them both. Bruce had told him that he just needed time to cool down and then they could come back, but Steve had no intention of staying in that strange, sterile room any longer. 

 

They hung the papers up across the living room walls in sequential order, and Steve had come into the room too many times to find Bucky staring at them, sometimes tracing a metal finger down a page that had captured his attention, and he’d look at Steve and Steve would see the broken, fractured remnants of his best friend fighting to coalesce into something sensical. 

 

There’d been a few things that Bucky hadn’t wanted him to see, and Tony’s father’s death had been one of them. Steve had respected Bucky’s rights and stuck to the things that he knew the most about--their childhood unless Bucky specifically requested that he help him with something, such as decoding what Natasha had scribbled in the margins of some of Bucky’s notes about the Red Room. 

 

Steve let out a sigh, and though he technically couldn’t get headaches, he pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger in an attempt to relieve the pressure that was building there. He walked back from the entrance hall to find Bucky sitting at the kitchen table, shirtless with a metal cleaning set spread out beside him. Bucky looked up from picking something out from between two sheets of metal and nodded at Steve. He hadn’t smiled, not yet, and Steve found himself aching for that smile as if it would save him from some serious disease. 

 

Steve sat down opposite Bucky and pulled his sketchbook out with a pencil. “Mind if I draw you?” He asked.  That was something new, too. They’d never asked before. Bucky’d posed himself and Steve’d drawn him. Bucky looked up from the metal plate he was cleaning.

 

“Yes,” he said, and Steve felt his heart plummet. He set the sketchbook down and wondered where to go from there, but Bucky continued. “Wait until it’s clean, I might need your help with some of the shoulder pieces. I can’t reach them.”

 

“Oh,” Steve said, and hoped that he could convey his gratitude through that single word. He nodded and watched Bucky work more closely now than he had before, because he would need to do it later. 

 

Bucky paused and looked up at him. “If you don’t mind?” He added, and Steve was still sometimes shocked by those colorless eyes deadened and the way his voice didn’t have that Brooklyn cadance anymore. 

 

“Not at all,” Steve said, pulling the chair around the table to Bucky. He took the tools from Bucky’s fingers and poured some of the liquid--harsh smelling and cold--onto the cloth Bucky had used and wiped it down the place where the swell of his shoulder would’ve started had it been flesh. Hydra had taken extremely good care of the metal, that much was obvious. It glimmered underneath the grime that had accumulated from however long it had been since Bucky had cleaned it, and the metal was un-scratched for the most part. Even the part where Steve had slammed his shield into Bucky’s arm was spotless.  As Steve dug the pick into the place between two slots of metal, Bucky twitched and Steve pulled back, searching his face for any kind of pain. 

 

Bucky stared at him, eyes reflecting like mirrors, and Steve realized how close they were. He could smell Bucky--different but familiar all the same. 

 

“Did I hurt you?”

 

Bucky shook his head and offered his arm again. Steve took it, cradling it with one hand while working with the pick with the other. “You’re much gentler than my handlers,” was the only explanation Bucky gave and Steve looked up at him and wondered if it was possible for his heart to physically shatter. “I’m not used to it.”

 

They breathed the same air for a while as Steve cleaned Bucky’s arm, the metal hard and unforgiving underneath his fingers, but sliding like flesh in a sort of half-human way at times. It felt almost familiar, like when Bucky would patch him up after his latest fight in their dingy little apartment that had been home. Steve reached the place where metal met flesh and paused. He wanted to reach out and touch the scar, to reassure himself that Bucky was whole and alright, but he didn’t know how Bucky would react. Then, he remembered the phrase Bucky had repeated to him over the last three days when they’d been re-piecing his memories.  _ I’m not going to break, Steve, just spit it out.  _ Letting out a breath, Steve set the cleaning supplies down and placed his hand half across metal, and half across flesh. Bucky stayed completely still, eyes flat and unreadable, but he didn’t break. 

 

Steve ran his fingers across the violent scar and felt something shudder through him and tears pricked the back of his eyes. “I’m so sorry,” he breathed out, even though he’d promised himself he’d stop apologizing. Bucky still didn’t move, and Steve clenched his hand around the metal shoulder, letting the sharp edges dig into his palm. “I should’ve came and looked for you. They wouldn’t let me, but I should’ve came anyway.”

 

“Steve,” Bucky said, flat. Steve shook his head. 

 

“I’d disobeyed orders before for you and I would’ve done it again in a heartbeat if I would’ve thought you could have survived that fall, Buck--”

 

“Steve,” Bucky repeated, and a hand came up and touched his face. Steve looked up in surprise. Bucky hadn’t reached towards him in a long time. The flesh hand was rough and calloused against his smooth-shaven cheek, but it felt wholly similar to what it would’ve been back in their time at the army, because Bucky’d had callouses from his sniper rifle back then, too. 

 

Something sparked in those cold, dead eyes as Steve looked up at him and Bucky’s fingers stayed against his face, soft pressure, calloused texture, too hot to be called normal. Bucky opened his mouth as if to say something else, but no words came out, and he blinked before closing his mouth again, but still, those fingers stayed against Steve’s face. He could feel where each one rested like an individual flame too near to his face. 

 

His hair was falling into his face, brown locks too long for familiarity bracketing eyes that were eerily similar to what Steve had woken up to damn near every morning of his life, and Bucky Barnes was  _ beautiful.  _ Steve ached with the realization of it, and he wanted to press Bucky into himself, meld them into one person so that maybe he wouldn’t feel that hollow realization in his chest where his heart should go. 

 

Bucky’s lips, red and recently-bitten parted ever so slightly and Steve thought he was going to say something, but again, he simply looked at Steve, looked at him like he was seeing him for the first time. Something,  _ something _ was pulling Steve towards Bucky, like an inevitable fate, and he leaned forward, enraptured by the way emotions were swimming behind Bucky’s eyes and he wanted to dive into those eyes. 

 

“Steve,” Bucky said for the third time, and this time it wasn’t flat at all, but a realization, a question, a yearning. It was a multidimensional creature that spoke of something shared through nine decades of life, something that spoke to a wordless feeling that Steve couldn’t put a name to at the moment, and he wanted to bask in that feeling forever. 

 

Steve’s phone chimed and Bucky snapped away as if he’d been electrocuted, hand falling from Steve’s face. Steve sucked in a deep breath that seemed to shudder in his lungs like he was sixteen and asthmatic again and reached for his phone, set on the middle of the table. 

 

“Rogers,” Steve said curtly, turning away from Bucky so that maybe he could get his face under control. He walked to the kitchen window and stared blindly down at the street below. 

 

“Did someone wake up on the wrong side of the bed?” Sam asked. Steve let out a huff that could be a laugh if someone was listening hard. 

 

“Morning, Sam,” he said, and turned back to the kitchen table and saw that Bucky was slowly rolling the metal cleaning tools up. He didn’t look up, and Steve couldn’t see his face because his hair had fallen between them like a curtain. “Missing our runs already?”

 

“You wish. I’m calling for Fury, he wants to thank you for sending the information Bucky gave SHIELD since no one at the agency bothered,” Sam said, and it sounded like he was making breakfast in the background.

 

“Did he now?” Steve asked. Sam sighed and there was a loud clang that sounded like pots.

 

“Also, there’s some papers I want to bring over for you regarding the latest mission we went on.”

 

“Yeah, come whenever. We’re here at the new apartment all day I think,” he said and turned to look at Bucky, but his friend had quietly left, and Steve felt something sinking in his chest. He’d scared Bucky off, and some part of him had known he’d do that. It could be days before he’d open up enough to let Steve talk to him again. Steve did not think about the way his chest had tightened when he’d looked at Bucky. The he realized that he’d missed Sam’s answer and asked him to repeat it. 

 

“Alright, I’ll come after lunch,” Sam said. “I’ve gotta go, my bacon’s burning.”

 

“See you,” Steve said and hung up, and when he went to sit down at the table, he picked up his sketchbook and drew Bucky from memory. 

 

00800

 

Bucky was on the porch, Steve found out after he’d finished his drawing, and was looking out at the city. He did that a lot, and Steve remembered the habit well from when they’d lived in Brooklyn. Steve’d always wondered what it was that made Bucky stare so pensively across the great expanse of space. 

 

“Sam’s coming over,” Steve said. Bucky nodded without looking at him, and he was flexing his fingers like he wanted to punch something. “We’ll eat lunch before if you want.”

 

“I’m not hungry,” Bucky said, and his voice was flat again. Steve felt further away from Bucky than he had when death separated them. He nodded, though Bucky wasn’t looking at him, and tried to think of something else to say. When he couldn't think of a damn thing, he went back inside and tried to convince himself that he had an appetite and ended up just sitting on the couch and trying not to feel lost, because even though everything that Bucky  _ was _ was currently taped up on the walls of this room, he didn’t know where Bucky--his Bucky--was. 

 

Bucky didn’t move from his position outside, and Steve found himself staring at him, trying to see something familiar, anything at all beyond the physical appearance. 

 

“Cap?” Steve startled out of the seat and turned to face Sam, who stood in the doorway of the living room, looking like he was ready to knock on the wood. “Your door was open and no one answered when I knocked,” he said apologetically. 

 

“No worries,” Steve said and walked to meet him at the door. He inspected Sam’s face for injury, and found none; surprising, since they all got beat up almost weekly. “Has Fury not sent you on any missions yet?”

 

“As far as I know, Romanov is the only one on mission right now.” Sam didn’t sound happy about the fact. “It’s been fairly quiet after the events of…” he trailed off and looked outside, to where Bucky was sitting, still in the same position as before. “How is he?” He asked. 

 

Steve motioned to the walls. “He remembers, but I don’t really think he’s alright yet.”  _ I don’t know if he ever will be,  _ he didn’t add, because that wasn’t a good thing to say out loud about his best friend. 

 

“Hey,” Sam said, and Steve managed to unstick himself from the train of thought. Sam rested a hand on Steve’s shoulder and smiled at him. “He’s only been here for what, a week? He’ll get better, Steve.”

 

Steve wanted to ask how Sam knew that, wanted to snap blindly out because it would hurt less, but he just smiled and nodded and thanked Sam by grasping the arm that Sam hadn’t taken off of his shoulder yet. “Thanks, Sam.” He wondered if he could ever get through a discussion about Bucky without feeling as if he couldn’t talk past the sudden lump in his throat. 

 

The door opened and Steve let go of Sam to turn to Bucky, who stood in the doorway without any expression on his face, but Steve saw the way his eyes tracked the fall of Sam’s hand to his side and something ugly flashed through his eyes. He looked back up at Steve and Steve decided he’d imagined it. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but a moment later he simply closed the door and walked down the hall to the bedroom. Steve heard the door slam closed and he let out a sigh. 

 

“What if he doesn’t?” Steve asked in a low tone, feeling a wash of hopelessness go through him. “I can’t get him to talk to me about anything, and then if he actually does, he closes off after a few minutes, and I can’t figure out how to get him like that more often.” 

 

Sam shook his head and pulled a grimace-grin. “I don’t know what to tell you, Rogers. I’ve never had a best friend who supposedly died seventy years resurface as a brainwashed famous assassin.” Steve sighed again, and Sam followed up in a softer tone, “Hey, everything will work out. You’ve taken a critical step to recovering Bucky and I know how much he means to you.” Steve shook his head and moved to the table where Sam had set a manilla folder. 

 

“So what are we looking at?” He asked, and managed to distract himself for at least a few minutes with the information Sam had brought. He was actually nearly at ease by the time that Sam got up to leave from the kitchen table, and managed a laugh at the joke Steve had to process for a few minutes because he still didn’t quite understand the references that people casually flung around. Sam caught him completely off guard with his parting words. 

 

“I wasn’t going to say anything because you two seem to be walking on eggshells around each other, but to hell with it. You’re obviously in pain and so is he, so I might as well just tell you.”

 

“Tell me what?” Steve asked, confused, and something was sinking, deep in his stomach.  

 

Sam shook his head and leaned on the door jam. “Can I just be blunt, Cap?” 

 

“I’d appreciate if you’d just spit whatever’s on your mind out, yes,” Steve said. 

 

“Well here goes nothing,” Sam muttered. “Look, it’s about Bucky.” Steve wondered if he’d have to punch Sam through a wall, because if he heard another thing about how Bucky couldn’t be saved, he’d-- “You’re in love with him and he’s in love with you and it’s like a goddamn tragedy because you look at him and see the stars and he looks at you and sees the sun and you both think the other is just looking at the ground.” He looked back up at Steve, eyes unreadable and Steve wasn’t quite sure if he’d heard him right. 

 

“What?” Steve asked. Surely, surely he wasn’t talking about  _ that  _ kind of love. The love that had gotten Steve beaten up many a time in an alley just because he and Bucky lived together and would do absolutely anything for each other. “Surely you don’t mean--”

 

“I’ve seen the way you look at him, Steve, and I thought, well hell, this fella’s in for a tough ride because I’ve seen unrequited love take men to all kinds of dark places, but now that I’ve seen Bucky around you, I think anyone would be downright stupid to see that you two fit together like goddamn puzzle pieces.”

 

“Sam,” Steve said, low enough that maybe he could spare Bucky and his super-soldier hearing from this conversation. He didn’t need this on top of everything else. “Me and Buck don’t love each other like that.  That kind of love is  _ wrong. _ ”

 

Sam shook his head. “Not between two people who really mean it.”

 

“I was brought up Catholic,” Steve said, and he realized that his heart was pounding and he felt sick, as if he’d been caught doing something bad and in a few moments he’d feel the blush that was already starting way down on his goddamn toes creeping up his neck, because  _ hell,  _ if that didn’t make Steve uncomfortable. “God says that--”

 

“I’ve read the bible, Cap, and God never once said that a man and a man cannot lie together. That was some homophobe.” Sam shot a smile at him, and Steve realized that he was right.  Not that he’d ever need to know that-- _ Stop getting distracted, Rogers,  _ he told himself. 

 

“I appreciate that, but really, Sam, Bucky and I never--”

 

“Hey, Cap chill, alright?” Sam took a step back. “I call ‘em like I see ‘em and a man can’t be right a hundred percent of the time.”

 

“It’s alright,” Steve said, letting out a breath. “I’m sorry.”

 

“No, don’t be sorry. Just look over those papers and let me know what you think, and maybe we can get some consensus back to Fury before he explodes,” Sam said, grinning, and Steve allowed himself a small smile, even though his heart was still racing and he felt like he was about to go into an asthma attack. 

 

“Alright, Abyssinia, Sam,” he said, and didn’t even catch the slang that was out of place until he’d already turned away.

 

He closed the door and most definitely didn’t lean against it and and ponder Sam’s word for damn near an hour, because he told himself that he was certainly not thinking about those words, rolling them over and over in his head and applying them to every situation he and Bucky had ever uncomfortably found themselves in, and he didn’t startle guiltily when Bucky came out of the room and looked him over, eyes not showing a single emotion.

 

Nope. Steve refused to go there. 

 

00800

 

There were things they didn’t talk about, that much hadn’t changed a bit.

 

They didn’t talk about how Bucky would look over at Steve and Steve would get that feeling again, as if he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been, even though he’d just been  _ looking.  _ But he was afraid that Bucky would look at him and see what he was looking  _ for.  _ He’d look at the way Bucky’s hair fell, brushing the juncture of neck and shoulder the swell of the muscle there, and the way his steely grey eyes flashed like metal occasionally, and tried to figure out what Sam could’ve meant. Yes, Bucky meant damn near everything to him, but that’s how it had been when they were kids. So he stared. 

 

They didn’t talk about the fact that every time Bucky fell asleep, he’d wake up screaming and Steve would lead him to his room without a word, and Bucky would curl up against Steve, shivering like he was cold--even though he was burning hot--and Steve would wrap his arms around Bucky and listen to the Russian he whispered without understanding a thing. Because the next morning, Bucky would be closed off as ever, sometimes ripping himself out of Steve’s arms the moment he woke up, and when Steve managed to drag himself out of bed after, Bucky would be outside on the balcony, shoulders hunched in tense points that let Steve that he wasn’t welcome at all. 

 

Bucky didn’t eat, and they didn’t talk about the times that he would force the food down that Steve had cooked, only to throw it up minutes later, and neither Steve nor Bucky mentioned the fact that Steve held his hair back and rubbed soothing circles onto his shoulder throughout the entire ordeal. They didn’t talk about that because that would mean that they were acknowledging the fact that there was something wrong, and Steve was supposed to be making Bucky  _ better. _

 

He was almost normal at other times, and Steve forgot that there was actually anything wrong. He would grin in the way that Steve remembered at the war camp--never that innocent, boyish charming smile that had gotten half of the eligible dames in Brooklyn dancing in Bucky’s arms, but still bright enough for Steve to recognize it. He would joke and laugh like he’d never been a brainwashed soldier, and Steve tried hard to believe that it would be alright, that he could wake up to this every day and not worry about Bucky relapsing.

 

Steve’d thought that Bucky was in pain the night he got up for water and heard the muffled whimpers coming from the pull-out couch. He hadn’t thought twice about going right into the room to wake Bucky from whatever nightmare he was caught in,and when he saw that Bucky was sitting up with metal fingers clenched between his teeth it was much too late to go back. Besides, Bucky was already looking at him. He could see the glint of Bucky’s eyes as they shot up to meet his and he could see that Bucky was dressed in only his boxer shorts which his flesh hand was currently inside, and by the time Steve realized what was happening, he couldn’t look away. 

 

Bucky’s breath came in hard, fast pants, hitching on the inhale, and his eyes were still fixed defiantly on Steve’s when Steve managed to tear his eyes back to eye level, and he dropped his metal hand from between his teeth, letting the previously muffled whimpers out into full moans. Steve wanted to look away, but his eyes strayed to Bucky’s lips, and they were so red it looked painful from biting, down his heaving chest and rippling abdomen, to where that hand moved, and it could have been his imagination, but Steve was almost sure that Bucky opened his legs just a tad more. Steve’d done this enough himself to know that Bucky was close from the jerky, erratic movements and harsh breaths Bucky was expelling. 

 

On Steve’s next indrawn breath--the first one after having been shocked into utter stillness--Bucky tensed, eyes rolling up to the ceiling and for one glorious moment, Bucky was held in that position, a beautiful statue carved into elegant lines that spoke of lust and pleasure and everything carnal, and Steve found that he’d unconsciously draw the curve of Bucky’s throat in the weeks to come. After an impossibly long moment, Bucky relaxed, and his eyes met Steve’s once more, hooded and more alive than Steve’d seen them in days. 

 

When he lifted his fingers and  _ licked _ eyes daring--inviting?--Steve to do something, Steve inhaled sharply, and realized that he  _ wanted.  _ In that moment, he was a creature of utter and absolute need, so acute that he felt every cell in his body cry out for it, and  _ how could he have not realized before?  _ Bucky was a thing of beauty, beckoning, and Steve felt as if his eyes were magnetic, drawing him in, and before he knew it, Steve had one knee propped on the bed and his fingers reached out to Bucky. Metal fingers met his halfway to Bucky’s face, lacing through his like they were fitted to do that singular action, and the coolness against the hot want of Steve shocked him back into the present, and  _ what the hell was he doing? _ Steve jerked back and disentangled their fingers. 

 

“Are you alright, Buck?” he managed to get past the lump in his throat, because he was a disgusting disgrace to everything that was meant to be friendship and he didn’t deserve to speak to Bucky. 

 

“Better now,” Bucky muttered, and the spell seemed to have broken for him, too, because he looked away and if they’d been in better light Steve was sure Bucky would be blushing. The only reminder was the lingering smell of sex, and Steve still felt heady on the scent, and it made him sick to his stomach, because that wasn’t what friendship or whatever they had was about. Steve nodded and stood up abruptly, unable to stay that close to Bucky. He felt dirty for watching, and he didn’t know if he could stand it, the uncleanliness around something as  _ bright _ as Bucky Barnes.

 

“If you need me,” Steve began, but didn’t finish, because he didn’t know what to say, and Bucky nodded as if nothing was off, and curled in on himself as if it physically hurt to be in his skin and everything in Steve  _ ached _ to lie down beside him and take away that pain, but the memory of the heat he’d seen in Bucky’s eyes propelled him off the bed--because he was misreading that situation, surely--and went to get the water. 

 

He did not relieve the pleasure-pain that reminded him with every brush against anything and everything that he had lusted after his best friend, because he would’ve likely thrown up, and even though it was painful, Steve took it as penance. 

 

They didn’t speak of it in the morning, or any time after, and when Bucky said that he wanted to go to the gym and work off some energy, Steve was wholly inclined to join him. It had been forever since he’d been able to work out--first the hospital and then finding Bucky and helping him recover--and he was beginning to go a bit stir-crazy. 

 

They found the gym that Tony had some money invested in, and even though it was barely light out, the door opened and they had the entire gym to themselves. They lifted for a bit, and Steve was most definitely not looking at the way Bucky’s shirt stuck in all the right places, because he wasn’t thinking of last night. 

 

He didn’t know how it happened, but they found themselves in the boxing ring. It might’ve had something to do with the utterly  _ Bucky-ish _ smirk Bucky’d given Steve when he’d said, “Bet I can beat your ass, Rogers.”

  
“Oh, wouldn’t you like to know,” Steve challenged right back. “Jerk.”

 

“Punk,” Bucky’d said and grabbed Steve around the neck like he had when they were shorter, and Steve had to stop to laugh at the height difference, and then Bucky was laughing too, almost as if he was startled by the noise, and Steve was wresting Bucky down onto the mat. It had been forever since they’d had the time, and later when Bucky was older, he’d refused to hurt Steve in case he sent him into an asthma attack. 

 

For the moment, Steve forgot about the seventy years that separated their last meeting, forgot about all of the bad things, because in this moment inside the empty gym with no windows to indicate that the sun was rising on the day that symbolized the week since Bucky had remembered who he was. He forgot that there was something new and alien and utterly volatile between them now, ,because for the moment, he was just a kid named Steve and his best friend in the world, the one he looked up to for everything because Bucky was a goddamn good person no matter what anyone else thought. 

 

Then, Bucky didn’t pull a punch. Steve stopped fighting as pain cracked through his head like lightning, and somehow he was trapped underneath Bucky and held his hands up in defeat, but Bucky’s metal arm cracked down, narrowly missing Steve’s head; only because he’d twitched to the side at the last moment, and something ripped underneath them. Bucky looked down through the few lanky strands of hair he’d missed when he’d pulled it back, and his eyes were that dreaded blank-cold. 

 

“Buck?” Steve asked, and Bucky simply stared at him as if he didn’t know who he was. “Bucky, hey, let’s go back to the weights.”

 

For a terrible moment, Steve thought that Bucky would try to kill him again, and they’d have to start from square one, and Steve didn’t know if he would be able to do it. Then, Bucky shook his head, and blinked a few times, squinting down at Steve with just a bit of confusion, and then cuffed him across the face playfully. The smile didn’t reach his eyes, however, and Steve noticed it dropped off of his face the moment Bucky stood up and thought Steve wasn’t watching him. That haunted, terrifyingly non-Bucky-like look that sometimes consumed Bucky’s face didn’t seem to completely fade away until they left the gym, and it lingered in the tension in Bucky’s movements for the rest of the night. Steve didn’t talk about it, and Bucky made no move to acknowledge it. 

 

Maybe if they’d talked about everything they hadn’t, Steve wouldn’t have woken the morning after the gym to find Bucky gone without a trace and with a sinking feeling in his chest like he’d expected it all along. 

 

00800

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quote that Sam said is from Tumblr, rogersbarnes, but the account is discontinued or something. Just wanted to let you know.
> 
> As usual, please point out any errors, I've only given it a quick read-through and probably missed a ton of mistakes. Thanks! Comments are also appreciated!


	6. Chapter 6

00800

 

“Cap, you’ve gotta come out.”

 

Steve shifted his gaze from the blankness of the wall to the steely grey of the sky outside the windows, and wondered if the weather was mocking him. The sun hadn’t come out in nearly a week, and it’d rained for four days straight before slowing down to a drizzle, and today the clouds had cleared in the West. There was a sort of expectant silence on the other end, and Steve sighed, taking the phone away from his ear and glancing at the time--and date--above Sam’s name. He blinked as he realized that somehow six days had passed without him noticing. He’d told himself that he would only allow himself to stare off into space and mourn the loss of someone he’d hardly regained for an hour, not six days. “How d’you figure?” he muttered, slipping back into his native Brooklyn accent on habit. 

 

“Steve,” Sam said, sounding utterly exasperated, and Steve noticed that his clock had shut off on his microwave. The 12:00 blinked at him steadily. 

 

Steve got up from the couch--still unfolded, and even though he wouldn’t admit it to anyone, he hadn’t slept in his own bed since Bucky vanished. He would tell himself that tonight would be the night he would manage to drag himself to the bedroom, but it would be only a thought that slipped out of mind too quickly as his eyes fell shut, and for six days straight, Steve’d woken to the  _ almost _ smell of Bucky all around him, face pressed against the same pillow Bucky had used. He’d never tell anyone the way he buried his face in that pillow and tried to regain the sense of contentment being in Bucky’s vicinity always brought. Whenever they were apart, there seemed to be something rubbing Steve the wrong way, something slightly out of place, and maybe that was just because they’d lived and breathed together so long. 

 

“What is it, Sam?” he asked, going into the kitchen and resetting the clock. He considered the fridge and decided that he wasn’t hungry before going into his room. 

 

“Fury has been calling, and he says that he can’t get through.”

 

“I haven’t been answering mission calls.”

 

“This one you’ll want,” Sam said. “Fury needs you in. This is an important mission and it’s all hands on deck.” He sounded tense, and Steve wondered where he was. It sounded like he was in a crowd from the dull roar of voices behind him. “Don’t tell me you’re busy, because you told me that time, and a little birdy told me that you never even left your apartment to go grocery shopping.”

 

“So you’re spying on me now?” Steve asked, and he found himself in the bathroom, looking at himself in the mirror. Sometimes he still expected to see the skinny Brooklyn kid who’d been more bark than bite glaring back at him. Sometimes his reflection disturbed him. 

 

“Not spying,” Sam said. “Observing.”

 

“Isn’t that what a spy would say?” Steve asked, watching the corner of his mouth twitch up, but it wasn’t really a smile. 

 

Sam sighed on the other end of the line. “Just come in, Cap  and hear what Fury has to tell you.”

 

Steve’s eyes flicked to the counter, and he stared at a patch of faux marble that had a vaguely familiar-looking form, though Steve couldn’t quite tell what it was. He sighed. “Fine.” If he didn’t want to take it he could tell Fury no, and even though he already knew he wanted to turn the mission down--he wouldn’t be able to concentrate--at least it would maybe alleviate whatever worry Steve could hear saturating Sam’s voice. “Since Fury asked.”

 

Sam huffed out a breath that sounded almost like a laugh. “That’s not why you’re coming.”

 

“No,” Steve said and hung up. He dressed and left the apartment, almost welcoming the chill of the fog as he mounted his bike and drove to Fury’s hideout. 

 

00800

 

“Whatever it is that you want me to do, I don’t want it,” Steve said the moment the door opened. Nick Fury looked up from his desk and kept his face leaned on one hand, and he looked utterly unimpressed. The room was dark, lighting minimal, and air still, almost oppressing. Steve tried to not choke on it after the freedom of feeling the wind rushing past him on his bike. 

 

“Good to know you’re still alive, Cap,” he said dryly. “I was beginning to wonder.” Steve decided to not justify that with an answer, and stood behind the empty chairs across from Fury’s desk and clasped his hands together behind him. 

 

“You wanted me to come in?” he asked. 

 

“I have a mission,” Fury said, and Steve began shaking his head before he could even finish the, “for you,” party. 

 

“I’m busy.”

 

“What, moping around in your apartment because your best friend assassin has left?” Fury asked, standing, and Steve grimaced. Had it been anyone else who said that, he likely would’ve socked them and not bothered to pull the punch at all. “I have news for you, Rogers. You’re not going to get him back by doing nothing.”

 

“I know that,” Steve all but snapped, finding his hands by his sides, tensed into fists and ready to tear something apart. He might have to go to the gym after this meeting and destroy a few punching bags. 

 

Fury raised an eyebrow and laced his fingers together in front of him, observing Steve without fear. “Oh, I get it,” he said, and rounded the desk so that he was in Steve’s personal space, and if he wasn’t the best kind of idiot Steve’d ever met--“You’re  _ letting _ him get away, aren’t you? Is it because you’re so goddamn asshurt that he wouldn’t stay just because you begged him and turned those pretty baby blues on him and asked him real prettily? That might’ve worked in the ‘40s, Cap, but it sure as hell isn’t going to get you anywhere today.”

 

Steve let out a breath and told himself that the red that went across his vision wasn’t anger, because he refused to punch his former boss, no matter how fucking  _ irritating  _ he got. “Did you bring me here just to try to get me to punch you?” he asked, proud as hell that his voice sounded perfectly calm when he expelled the words from his sharply indrawn breath. This man tested his patience like nothing else. “Or was it to rub in my face the fact that I can’t keep ahold of one man who I probably know better than anyone else? Because trust me, I know that--”

 

“No, I’m not  _ petty  _ Rogers,” Fury said incredulously, rounding his desk once more and sitting down. He tapped the desk and a holographic keyboard appeared. He typed a few things into it and the wall behind him lit up, and Steve was looking at a picture of Bucky. He took an unconscious step forward, because Bucky was captured looking directly into the camera and he looked so utterly  _ lost _ that Steve’s heart nearly shattered. Steve let out a breath and looked away from Bucky’s eyes. He was wearing the same shirt he’d been wearing the day of the gym, so this picture was fairly recent. “One of my sources captured this picture yesterday in Mexico.”

 

“Mexico?” Steve asked, but then it had been six days, hadn’t it? “Where?”

 

“Mexico City,” Fury said, and Steve was already backing out of the door, but Fury held up a hand. “Before you go, I want you to know that we’re sending you in first, but if you fail, I will send a strike team in and take him out because he is too dangerous to be roaming the world.” Steve caught his breath at the suggestion, the thought of living in a world without Bucky when he knew he could’ve done something--Steve couldn’t do this again. He woke up in a cold sweat some nights with Bucky’s name on his lips, because he was caught in the moment when Bucky’s fingers slipped off of that train and if only he’d been a bit faster he could’ve saved him, could’ve avoided this whole thing. 

 

“I’ll get him,” Steve said desperately. “Give me a week.” 

 

“Five days, Cap,” Fury said, but Steve was already out of the door and pulling out his cell. 

 

“Hey, Sam?” he asked as he ran down the corridor. “You up for a trip? When? Now, Sam. Yeah? I’ll meet you at the airport in ten and we’re going to Mexico City. Pack for a week.”

 

00800

 

They didn’t find him in Mexico City, and they didn’t find him in Moscow. Steve caught a glimpse of him in London, but he ran and no matter how fast Steve was, he wasn’t as fast as the world’s greatest assassin. Three days were gone and they’d run out of leads. 

 

Steve felt the hopelessness hit him like a brick as he stared at a warehouse’s broken window in Amsterdam and slammed his shield into the floor hard enough for the concrete to shatter and his knees gave out, hitting the hard floor. It only made his arm hurt and didn’t bring Bucky back. Sam looked over at him, eyes obscured by his flying goggles, and Steve turned away before he could see the tears of frustration and exhaustion choking in Steve’s throat. 

 

“Where now?” he asked as Steve looked up at the molding ceiling and watched a spider scuttle across the edge of the window, startled by Steve’s sudden movement. The smell of dust and everything  _ not _ Bucky threatened to close his throat up. 

 

“I don’t know,” Steve said, and the words felt like the last of his fight eking out of him like blood. “This is the last place Fury had. We were only minutes behind him,” Steve spat. “We were supposed to be  _ before _ him.”

 

“Maybe he’s not here yet,” Sam said. Steve shook his head and managed to get to his feet. He walked to the broken window and tangled his fingers in some dark brown strands of hair caught on the edge of one sharp piece of glass and held them out for Sam to inspect. 

 

“He’s been here. He must’ve heard us come in.” He’d seen them the moment he’d noticed the window along with the tiny scrap of fabric Steve currently had clutched in his hand, one that he would later fall asleep with pressed against his cheek to catch the faintest hint of Bucky’s scent and not wake up with tears staining his cheeks, because he wasn’t admitting to that to anyone, not even himself. 

 

Sam let out a few violent curses and turned away. “Do you  _ tell  _ him we’re going to be here, Steve?” he asked, and Steve didn’t answer because he knew that Sam was simply venting the same anger Steve was bottling up. His mother had always told him not to do that, but he hadn’t been able to find an appropriate outlet yet. A moment later, Sam let out a breath. “Sorry,” he muttered, and Steve looked over to see him clenching and unclenching his fists. 

 

“S’okay,” he muttered back and sat down, tucking his shield in close to his chest and tried to think of something to do, but for the life of him, he couldn’t. 

 

“Where now?” Sam asked a few minutes later, yanking Steve out of a vicious cycle of going over everything he’d done wrong over the past few days, everything that could’ve gotten him here a few minutes faster to catch Bucky, because something told him that it would be a long time until they found another lead on Bucky’s whereabouts. 

 

So Steve just looked up at Sam and said, “Back home,” and told himself that it wasn’t him giving up, because he would still look and if the strike team  _ did  _ find him, Steve would get there first and save Bucky, because he wouldn’t give up, not now, not ever. 

 

Sam didn’t ask him why, and Steve could’ve gone all sappy on his friend, except that wasn’t what they did, not how they worked. He just patted Sam’s shoulder as he picked up his shield and walked out of the room where he’d almost caught Bucky and didn’t look back. They were on a plane to New York before Steve had time to change his mind. 

 

00800

 

_ Bucky peered up at him, eyes dark with lust. They were almost indiscernible in the near-darkness, the only light coming from the moon streaming in from the window. Steve looked down the expanse of his own heaving chest and abdomen to Bucky. He was shirtless and so was Bucky, and Bucky had a hand tracing the line of Steve’s sweats. The muscles of Steve’s stomach twitched under the feather light touch, and Steve wondered if Bucky’d meant to wake him like this.  _

 

_ “ _ Buck?” _ He asked, and Bucky’s eyes snapped from tracing his lips with an almost palpable weight to where they should be. He licked his own lips and the hungry, searching look that instantly opened a yawning cavern of answering want in the pit of Steve’s stomach, bottoming out and causing him to feel like he was plunging off of a cliff.  _ “Do you need something?”

 

_ Bucky slid up Steve’s body, making no qualms about pressing every inch of his hard, muscled body against Steve’s as he did so. Steve thought he made a noise he would’ve blushed to even consider in the day, but he wasn’t sure because Bucky’s eyes were swallowing him up in a fever. Bucky paused just below his chin, long hair brushing along his neck and collarbone with every movement Bucky made. He cocked his head to the side and gave Steve a smirk he would’ve recognized anywhere from when they’d go dancing, the one he used to lure a pretty dame into his arms for one last dance before she had to go home before curfew.   _ “You,” _ he said as if it was an easy answer to a stupid question. _

 

_ Before Steve could get the ‘what’ that was dancing on the tip of his tongue out, Bucky leaned down and bit into the skin above Steve’s collarbone, and Steve swore he saw sparks as he tilted his head back, gaze going to the ceiling. He didn’t attempt to hold back his next noise, somewhere between a choked groan and a question as Bucky’s tongue lapped at the area he’d bitten and Steve wondered if it was possible that he’d never felt so aroused in his life. When he managed to glance down again, Bucky pulled his head back and stared at Steve again, this time much closer. Steve swallowed, suddenly wondering what the hell Bucky was doing here.  _

 

“Bucky, what are you doing?” _ he asked, but it was breathless and didn’t really hold the weight behind it that Steve thought it would. It came out breathy like he was trying to talk right after an asthma attack. Bucky smiled again but this time there was nothing playful about it, and he looked like a creature consumed in something primal and almost foreign to Steve. Not foreign enough for him not to recognize it, and feel himself pulled into the same burning heat, and Steve went willingly. _

 

_ When Bucky leaned down and nipped at Steve’s lips with his teeth, Steve went willingly, not questioning a single thing. It felt like he was exactly in the place he was meant to be, like the stars were aligning in the way they were supposed to for the first time since Steven Grant Rogers had been born and named, since he’d met Bucky and he wondered if this was a fate he wasn’t meant to escape. He decided that the answer was yes as Bucky’s tongue slipped into his mouth.  _

 

_ Not breaking the kiss, Bucky shifted so that he was straddling one of Steve’s thighs, pushing his knee in between and it became impossible not to notice how utterly aroused Bucky was with his length pressed flush against Steve’s thigh. Steve ought to have broken away taken a few deep gasps of air just to get himself under control, but he didn’t. He kissed Bucky in one continuous motion as Bucky’s knee brushed his thighs, almost  _ almost _ where he wanted pressure. Before he could even contemplate how much he needed the touch, one of Bucky’s hands was trailing down his front to the place where skin met fabric, and he only hesitated a moment before slipping a hand inside. _

 

_ Steve broke this kiss now and full-on gasped. No matter what Natasha had said, he hadn’t so much as kissed someone since before he’d gone in ice, and it had been even longer since he’d been touched. He hadn’t realized he’d missed the way someone else’s hand felt around his dick. Bucky stroked him like he’d been doing it for years and knew exactly what he liked, and his metal arm burned cold against Steve’s side and Steve was happy to lose himself right then and there to the frenzy Bucky had brought into his bed, but Bucky was looking down at him and his hand had stilled.  _

 

_ “ _ Do you want this? _ ” he asked, and it was breathless, so utterly breathless and broken and Steve knew that if he said no that something vital between them, something that had been kindling since childhood would be broken. It wasn’t as if he wanted to say no. He’d never realized how much he’d craved this, being closer to Bucky than he thought possible,and wondered what kind of sick he was because this wasn’t normal. But all the same, when he opened his mouth to answer Bucky’s question, an affirmation was what spilled out.  _

 

_ “ _ A thousand times yes,” _ he breathed,and Bucky smiled, the kind of smile that he hadn’t seen since before the war and Bucky had been caught up in all the death and violence and experimenting. He leaned down and kissed Steve once more, sloppily this time and quickly before moving onto his jaw,. Steve’s eyes rolled up to the ceiling once more and he didn’t try to hold back the noises now as Bucky stroked him, hands sure and quick, and Steve realized that he couldn’t have not known. How many times had they caught each other jerking off as teenagers and even in the army when they shared a tent and sometimes a bed? If Steve concentrated--something he knew he couldn’t do at this moment--and remembered, he’d be able to figure out how Bucky liked it, too. He would’ve laughed, but the noise got caught up in another groan, and Bucky kissed him again.  _

 

“I’m gonna make it real good for you, Stevie, _ ” he whispered in Steve’s ear when he’d thoroughly explored Steve’s mouth with his own again. Steve shivered as Bucky’s lips brushed against his ear. Some time ago, Bucky’d started rocking along Steve’s thigh rhythmically something that should’ve set Steve’s nerves on edge, but feeling Bucky against him and the shift and slide of his muscles was somehow the absolute hottest thing Steve had ever experienced.  _

 

“Bucky, _ ” was all he could manage to pant back, because Bucky’s rough gun-calloused fingers were doing something unspeakably good to his prick, thumb brushing over the head every few strokes or so and that sent sparks up and down Steve’s spine, and he knew he wouldn’t last much longer. It’d been too long, and Bucky was setting a pace almost too fast for Steve to catch up to, and he wondered if it was possible to break apart from this, to fall to pieces and have to be bound together. He forced his eyes open and watched Bucky as he came, the way his eyes were dark with lust and his mouth was even more bitten-red and his breathing coming in harsh pants as he  thrust himself against Steve. _

 

_ Metal fingers entwined with his reaching hand, gripping to the point of almost-pain which was lost in the pleasure, and Steve came with Bucky’s name on his lips, metal burning into his fingers and the smell of Bucky all around him, and nothing had ever felt so utterly right in his entire existence-- _

 

Steve woke with sheets tangled between his legs with sweat dripping down his face and come turning tacky against his thighs already because there was no one’s body heat to keep it warm, and for the first time in forever he was cold and shaking.  

 

00800

 

This was a dream. Steve checked and checked again out of his peripheral, because surely he wouldn’t be so goddamn lucky and Bucky wouldn’t be so goddamn stupid. Nope, that was Bucky standing outside of the bookstore, talking on his cell quite animatedly. Steve finished handing over the cash and the nice old lady who’d given him suggestions without staring at him dumbly when he walked into her shop handed him the bag. 

 

“You have a nice day, Mr. Rogers,” she said, patting his hand. He looked over at her briefly, at her cataract-covered eyes and realized that’s what he should look like. He glanced back at Bucky. That’s what they both should look like. 

 

He gave her a smile and waved as he left, making sure to keep his head down and not staring openly at Bucky. He stopped a few feet away and watched Bucky, picking up the Russian he was speaking but not understanding it. Bucky flailed his arms around in his typical dramatic way and Steve couldn’t help the smile that lifted the corners of his mouth, because he still had two hours until Fury’s deadline and Bucky was right in front of him. 

 

Bucky sighed, breath stirring the too-long locks of his hair as he hung up, and Steve glanced over his friend’s body, taking in the hoodie that hid most of him, the dark cargo pants and sturdy boots and wondered who he’d stolen them from. They were too short around the limbs and a bit too tight. He looked uninjured, and Steve made sure to keep six feet between them as Bucky started walking down the avenue, away from Steve’s apartment. 

 

Steve tracked Bucky’s movements and the occasional flash of the metal fingertips that came through the sweatshirt and muttered quick apologies to the people he passed and sometimes bumped into without looking at them. Bucky didn’t turn once, and Steve thought that he was actually getting somewhere, until Bucky turned a corner and Steve blinked when he realized that he wasn’t falling the flash of metal fingers like a beacon anymore and somehow Bucky’d noticed that he had a tail. Steve looked around the corner and was disappointed to see it empty--where could Bucky’ve gone?

 

It was a dead end alley that was eerily quiet compared the bustle of the city only feet away and smelled of beer and cats. Steve peered into the shadows and--flash of metal. He was down the alley, turned around with his back to the entrance. 

 

Steve was down the alley in an instant, moving faster than he recalled moving in a long time, but he stopped just outside of arm's length because he knew he’d reach out and try to touch him to make sure that he was real, and Steve wasn’t sure if Bucky was stable for that right now--

 

Bucky turned, a humorless grin stretched across his face and the look in his eyes was worse than death. “Hiya, Stevie,” he said, and his hand was wrapped around a pistol. 

  
00800

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was short, I know, and I’m sorry. (I’m a terrible person.)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally a little bit of non-platonic action between our two favorite supersoldiers!

00800

 

Sam Wilson always seemed to have issues drinking his orange juice after a run. The last time this had happened, Steve and Natasha had come to his house looking for shelter from SHIELD. This definitely wasn’t as drastic, just his cellphone ringing in his pocket and  _ BLOCKED _ coming up on the screen as he sighed and set the carton down. He hoped this wouldn’t become habit, because it was really inconveniencing. A man needed hydration. 

 

“Hullo,” he said as he unlocked his phone and held it up to his ear. “This’d better be good,” he added when no one immediately answered. There was the typical noise of a busy New York city in the background, but far away, like the caller was on a balcony or roof. 

 

“Wilson,” a man said, and his voice was unfamiliar. He sounded a bit breathless, like he’d been running like Sam. 

 

“This is he,” Sam said, letting the confusion show through his words. 

 

“You’re closest to Steve out of all of the Avengers, so I figured it’d be best to call you.”

 

“May I ask who's calling?” Sam asked, already picking up his phone he used for SHIELD business only and sent a text to the first person he could think of: Natasha.  _ Track my current call, might have someone important. _

 

Nat’s text was only a few seconds behind.  _ On it. _

 

The man on the other side of the line let out a breath. “I think my name is Bucky Barnes, but I’m not completely sure. They call me the Winter Soldier.”  _ Called it,  _ Sam thought. 

 

“Hey, man, I’d say I’m happy to hear from you, but I literally just spent the last week on a plane and running around on buildings and getting yelled at by the police because I guess we were trespassing. So I’m not very happy to hear from you.” 

 

“That’s exactly why I’m calling,” Barnes said, and Sam blinked. “You need to stop looking for me. If I called Steve, he’d just argue, but I figure you’re less of a pain in the ass than he is.” There was a touch of annoyance and fondness in the tone, and Sam felt a foreign feeling go through him. He was torn between anger because he really hadn’t enjoyed the long journey, but it was clear from Barnes’ words that he really cared about Steve. 

 

“I’ve been told I’m very personable,” Sam supplied after a moment’s hesitation. “Ask away. Or, I guess, tell away.”

 

There was a huff on the other end of the line as if Barnes was laughing, and Sam smiled. “Hydra’s onto me. I’ve been able to avoid them for almost a month after the Potomac, but I can’t anymore. Yesterday I turned around and saw one of them following me, but before I could kill them, they got away.”

 

“Hydra? Man, where are you now?”

 

“New York,” Barnes said. “But don’t bother tracing my location because I’ll be gone before you can even get your tactical team down here.”  _ Shit, too late for that. _ Then, his tone took on some urgency, the lazy drawl gone. “You need to tell Steve to stop, because they’ll catch him. I can evade them for a bit longer, but if Steve gets captured--” There was a pause, almost a choke, and Sam felt his heart go out to the guy. He knew what it was like to send a teammate out into danger and have them not return. He knew exactly what that was like. 

 

“Alright,” he said, before Barnes could finish. “I’ll tell him, but I don’t know how much good it’ll do. You’ve known him longer than me, Barnes. Don’t you know how stubborn he is?”

 

This time it was an actual laugh, aborted halfway through. “I do, god I do.” Pause. “Thank you, Sam. I couldn’t live with myself if Steve got captured.”

 

“Anytime,” Sam said, and Barnes disconnected. Sighing, Sam considered his orange juice on the counter. His phone buzzed again before he could even put it back in his pocket.  

 

_ It’s near Steve’s apartment.  _ Natasha. 

 

Sam was typing out the thank you message when two more messages came in, one right after the other. 

 

_ I’ve been bugged, Sam.  _

 

_ Whoever was tracking me knows where that call came from and I hope to god it wasn’t who I think it was. _

 

“Fuck,” Sam muttered, and abandoned the orange juice, because it was either Hydra or SHIELD and neither was a good option, and he needed to leave now. 

 

Goddamn, he really needed to hydrate.

 

00800

 

The look in Bucky’s eyes was painful to look at, and Steve was almost tempted to look away as he turned fully around to face Steve, pointing his toes at him so that Steve knew he had his full attention on him. He’d do that when they were kids to let Steve know he wasn’t being ignored or half-listened to like most of the other kids did, and the habit had stuck. Steve wanted to reach out and find some way to take that terrible look out of Bucky’s eyes, but the gun stopped him. “Bucky,” he said, or tried. It came out as more of a strangled noise than anything else. 

 

Bucky’s eyes skipped over him, taking in the same paleness in his face Steve had caught in the brief glance in the mirror he’d spared himself after getting off of the plane and had stopped in the bathroom to splash water on his face and the circles under his eyes. Bucky didn’t look much better himself, Steve noticed as his eyes soaked in every single piece of Bucky he could take in with one glance. 

 

When he met Bucky’s eyes again, Bucky was still looking him over, and Steve felt his breath catch in his chest, because this could’ve been just another day when Bucky would step through the door and see Steve sitting at the couch and give him a concerned once-over because he’d spent the day bedridden due to whatever latest illness he’d caught. He caught Steve looking, and his gaze shuttered and it was impossible to miss the way his hand tightened around the gun, going from lax to ready. It wasn’t pointed at him yet but he knew how easily that could change, and he wasn’t stupid. He knew that Bucky never missed a shot, especially at this range. 

 

“What’re you doing here, Steve?” Bucky asked, and it was halfway between the toneless inflection of the Winter Soldier and Brooklyn accent, and Steve was suddenly hit with an overwhelming sense of nostalgia. How many times had they found themselves in an alley, Steve bleeding and Bucky punching someone’s nose and slinging an arm around Steve’s shoulders partially to keep him upright as they made their way back to their apartment? 

 

“Isn’t it obvious, Buck?” Steve asked, holding his hands out in front of him as he took a step forward. Bucky jerked back and raised the gun. It didn’t shake, and Steve stared down the barrel of it and didn’t allow the fear to show on his face. Surely Bucky wouldn’t shoot him.  _ His  _ Bucky wouldn’t even raise a gun against him, wouldn’t even consider hurting him. “I came to find you.”

 

“I can’t be with you, Steve, it isn’t safe.” Bucky’s eyes were as steady as his hand. Steve didn’t shy away. 

 

“What isn’t safe, Bucky, is that in approximately an hour and a half, SHIELD is going to send a strike team to kill you,” he said, and stepped closer, until he could feel the barrel of the gun over his heart and pushed a little harder. For a moment, the  countenance on Bucky’s face was reminiscent of one of the war dogs they’d send in sometimes, feral and untamable, and then something flickered in his gaze, as if the Bucky Steve recognized was coming awake inside of him. 

 

Bucky dropped the gun with a huff of air through his lips that caused his hair to flutter as if in a wind and looked away. “What do you mean?”

 

“Fury gave me five days to find you before SHIELD eliminates you just because you spent so much time with Hydra,” Steve explained, and finally Bucky looked up at Steve. His face was unreadable, and Steve couldn’t hold himself back anymore. He surged forward and wrapped his arms around Bucky, needing to assure himself that Bucky was  _ real  _ and  _ here. _ Bucky relaxed for a fraction of a second, torso melding to Steve’s with the press of the gun between them, and then before Steve could get a full inhale of everything that smelled like Bucky but not, he’d tensed and was pushing Steve away. 

 

“Don’t touch me,” he snarled, using too much force to remove Steve’s hands from his upper arms, and Steve wondered for a moment if Bucky had somehow seen something in his gaze and knew what  _ wrong  _ thoughts Steve’d been plagued with since he’d walked in on Bucky that night, somehow knew that there was something wrong with Steve. But then his eyes met Steve’s, and they softened from hard steel to something more gentle. “I don’t want to hurt you again,” he said, and it was soft too, almost too soft, and Steve felt something in his chest ache. 

 

“You won’t,” Steve assured him, and something in Bucky’s gaze flickered, and he stepped back close to Steve and reached up with his flesh hand and brushed his knuckles against the skin of Steve’s cheek, and Steve couldn’t help the flinch even though he told himself to hold completely still. 

 

“You’ve healed,” Bucky said, and his hand didn’t leave Steve’s cheek, and they were breathing the same air for just a moment as Bucky continued, “But what I’ve done to you isn’t going to disappear.” 

 

“Buck, it wasn’t you--”

 

“Everyone keeps telling me that, but somehow I remember punching you even when I knew who I was.” His hand fell from Steve’s cheek finally, and Steve knew it wasn’t intentional--it couldn’t have been--when his ring finger caught on Steve’s lower lip and the thumb quickly swiped over it as if to make sure that he hadn’t caused any damage. 

 

“You were confused--”

 

“Stop making excuses for me, Steve!” Bucky’s voice was harsh, not quite a shout because he was still keeping his voice down as if he was trying to keep his presence concealed from someone, and there was space between them again. Bucky clicked the saftey back on the gun and shoved it into the holster strapped to his thigh and let out a deep breath. “I am not the kind of person you want to be around.”

 

“Don’t I get to by the judge of that, Bucky? Maybe I want to take a chance so that I can see you get better, so that I can by there when you get better--” Steve resisted the urge to reach out again and touch Bucky, make sure that he was getting his point across. 

 

“Steve, I might not get better.” It was like a blow to the chest, because even thouh Steve had always kept that option open, he hadn’t really believed it; hadn’t spoken out loud, because if he ignored it, it might just go away. Having Bucky admit it was almost like having it confirmed. He hesitated a beat too long, and he knew that Bucky caught it. 

 

“And that’s alright, Bucky, because I’m with you until the end of the line no matter what.” Bucky looked up at the familiar wording and shook his head. Before he could open his mouth and say something else, Steve managed to bite out,  “You’re all I have left and I can’t lose you. Not again, Bucky. And I don’t care--” he broke himself off this time and looked away because he worried for the integrity of his voice. He could feel the tightness wrapping around his throat and knew that his voice would shake if he continued. 

 

He looked away from Bucky for a moment, gaze going to the horde of people passing by the mouth of the alley, going about their daily lives without looking up to consider the problems of everyone else. For a moment, Steve envied them, being able to deal with such simple problems and let them consume their lives, and then he looked back over at Bucky and realized that he wouldn’t trade it for the world, his life--because he had Bucky. Bucky was watching him closely again, and Steve decided to continue. “I’m willing to take the risk of being hurt, of your brain malfunctioning sometimes, because I can’t stand the thought of losing you again.”

 

“Well I can’t, Steve, I’m sorry,” Bucky said, and he sounded almost back to the boy Steve’d grown up with. “I can’t risk it, not with you.” He shook his head and took a few steps back, even though there was nowhere to go. 

 

“Why?” Steve asked, and the word scraped along his throat like metal. “They’ll kill you if you don’t come back with me. What’s so important that you can’t risk coming back with me? If it’s because you’re afraid you’ll hurt me, I’m a supersoldier, Buck. I can take it.”

 

Bucky hesitated for a moment, eyes darting quickly between Steve and his own hands, and Steve wondered if he was going to run. He felt his muscles tensing up already in preparation of the chase, but he knew that if Bucky really wanted to run and get away from him, he’d manage it. There was no use. He had to try to get him to stay with words alone. “Steve,” he began, and Steve’s name was so broken and filled with so much pain that he felt it almost like a physical blow. He staggered back a step without meaning to, and then Bucky was darting around him, gun pulled once more, and Steve turned to see the SHIELD agents closing off the entrance of the alley way. He felt a jolt go through him. “Wait,” he said, stepping in front of Bucky. “I still have two hours.”

 

The agent on the left, a man Steve had seen once or twice raised a gun. “We have to take him into custody, Cap,” he said. 

 

“No, no wait, I still have time.” Steve took a step forward and the rest of the agents pulled guns. Steve stopped where he was, holding his hands up in the universal sign of ‘don’t shoot.’ “He’s coming back with me.”

 

“Steve,” Bucky said from behind him, a warning. 

 

“We have orders from Fury to take him now.”

 

_ That lying bastard. _ It had never been his intention to let Bucky come back. He wanted him under watch to make sure that he didn’t go back to Hydra. Steve felt a surge of anger go through him. He would rip through the entire organization until he got to Bucky and Fury if they dared to try and take him, and Fury should know it. “You can’t have him,” Steve said, low, threatening. He wasn’t suited up, didn’t have his shield, but he’d knock every single one of them out. 

 

“Steve, don’t,” Bucky said, and something in his voice made Steve turn to face him. He hardly had time to register Bucky’s metal arm flying towards him until the punch landed on his cheek. Pain crackled through his head, bright red spots flashing in front of his eyes, and then Bucky was vaulting up the wall and the agents were firing, bullets hitting the brick wall and chipping off little bits and pieces. Steve watched the bullets miss Bucky until Bucky was up and over the roof and gone. 

 

Steve didn’t bother getting up as the agents surrounded him, facing outwards and at the ready for whatever threat would come. It wouldn’t because Bucky was gone.  _ Again _ and Steve didn’t know if he’d be able to pull himself together again this time. 

 

00800

 

“Thanks, Sam,” Steve said and ended the call. He’d needed to hear a familiar,  _ friendly _ voice on the other end of the line after trying to get a meeting with Fury, only to be told--after hours of waiting--that he was out of country and that  _ sorry sir, we have other things to do.   _ Natasha had picked him up because she was there for debriefing and had happened to find him wandering the halls aimlessly. 

 

_Don’t worry,_ she’d said when they were in the car and she’d eventually just asked him to spill or else she was going to explode from the tension he was giving off. _He’ll be back. They didn’t capture him._ That part seemed very important to her. But Steve wasn’t sure. He opened the door to his apartment complex and nodded at the old lady behind the desk who had been nice enough to not comment on the strange hours he kept, unlike his last landlord. She just waved and told him to have a good night, and he told her he hoped she had the same as the elevator doors went shut between them and Steve collapsed against the wall of the elevator and tried not to feel as if everything was crushing him. 

 

The moment Steve stepped out from the elevator, he realized that something was off, though he couldn’t quite place it. It took silently creeping down the hall to his third-floor-one-bedroom and putting his ear against the door--which wasn’t solidly latched and moved underneath the light touch--for him to realize that there was loud music playing from his stereo, something from the dance halls in the late ‘30s. Bucky’d taught him how to dance to this song, Steve thought as he pushed the door open, glad now that he had taken the liberty of oiling the rusty hinges that shrieked something vicious when he first moved in. He was also glad of his paranoia and of the fact that he’d put a gun in the umbrella holder be the door after his last experience with a break in, with Fury. There had been swing music playing then, too, and Steve almost expected it to be him.

 

The lights were off, and there was nothing disturbed, but there was someone in there, Steve was positive, and when he reached the kitchen he raised the gun and clicked the safety off without even bothering to scan the room first. 

 

The figure standing on the other side of the counter turned and this time, Bucky wasn’t smiling. He looked pale and pained, and Steve let the gun drop to his side. 

 

“God, Bucky,” he said, stepping up to the counter and clicking the safety back on, laying the gun down on the table between them. Bucky leaned against the counter and placed his hands on the edge. “You could’ve called first. I thought someone had broken in.” He turned a light on over the counter, illuminating Bucky. He looked no different than he had hours ago, except without color in his cheeks and a smear of blood across his face. Steve didn’t want to know if it was his or someone else’s. 

 

“Hey Steve,” Bucky said, and hadn’t they just been here hours ago? Steve shook his head and took a deep breath in. His heart was still racing, although he couldn’t be sure whether or not it was the elation at seeing Bucky again or if it was the adrenaline setting his teeth on edge. “Remember when we used to dance to this?” 

 

Yes, Steve could. He could envision it as if it was yesterday, Bucky laughing, color high in his cheeks like he was drunk and Steve muttering apology after apology as he stepped all over Bucky’s toes. Nothing dark in Bucky’s gaze, nothing like the haunted animal that was peering at Steve now. “Yeah, Buck, I do,” Steve said instead of everything else he wanted to stay. He wanted to ask what Bucky was doing here and when he planned to leave again, but those questions would hurt and Steve wasn’t ready for the answers. So instead, he looked helplessly around for something--anything--else to talk about, because otherwise he’d blurt those dreaded questions out. So he grabbed the closest thing to him other than the gun and offered it to Bucky. “Orange?”

 

He was sure Bucky would decline; he’d hardly eaten anything in the time he’d stayed with Steve, but Bucky reached out and took it. Steve helplessly watched him peel it, the tang of citrus setting his nerves on edge. Finally, after watching Bucky shred it methodically and set the peel on the counter, he couldn’t stand it anymore. 

 

“Why did you leave?” he asked, leaning his forearms on the counter. 

 

Bucky broke the orange in half and tore a section off, eyes thoughtful. He’d put in in his mouth, chewed and swallowed it slowly before he responded, and his metal fingers were drumming a beat against the marble countertop that sounded nearly nervous. He set the rest of the orange down and ran his tongue along his bottom lip in a way that Steve pretended not to notice. Then, he looked at Steve, eyes still that thoughtful that bordered on troubled and there was the telltale line between his eyebrows that always meant that he was thinking hard about something. “I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you Stevie.” He mirrored Steve, so that they were both leaning forward on the counter, and Bucky’s eyes were dead serious. 

 

They’d always been able to communicate ideas they meant, even if the words they spoke meant something completely different from what they were trying to say, and if Steve wasn’t mistaken, Bucky was saying--he had to be completely sure. 

 

They were breathing the same air, and it must’ve been the sudden memory of Bucky’s head thrown back, all the muscles in his neck standing at attention and coated in sweat--the image that was burned into Steve’s eyelids no matter what he did--that drove him to say, “Try me,” because he never would’ve said it otherwise. He’d never breached that invisible line with words before, the line that kept them silent about all the things other men would wonder aloud about them when they thought that Steve and Bucky weren’t listening. The kinds of things Steve would challenge someone to a fight over, because God forbid he actually took a moment to consider what they said. 

 

Bucky’s lips quirked up in a bemused smile, because he must’ve been thinking along the same lines that Steve was, and he only just had time to consider the fear that was flooding him--because what if he had misread Bucky and ruined everything between them--before Bucky leaned in that little bit more that separated them still and slanted his lips across Steve’s like it was easy as breathing.

 

_ Oh.  _ Steve’s lips softened from surprise alone, melding to Bucky’s and Steve’s first thought was that this was  _ nice,  _ and then Bucky moved his lips, just slightly, and the adjective Steve thought of was just about as far from nice on the pleasure spectrum as he could get. He was suddenly wondering if it was possible for lips--just lips and nothing else--to feel so utterly  _ right,  _ as if he’d been missing something important and Bucky’s lips against his was what it was. The kiss was hesitant, almost feather-light at first, as neither Steve nor Bucky dared to breach any further, but something happened and Steve was making an insistent noise that had Bucky pressing harder and Steve saw sparks like he had earlier when Bucky’d punched him, but the pain he felt was only the edge of the counter pressing Steve’s jacket zipper into his stomach. 

 

Bucky full-on  _ growled _ and his metal hand was twisted in the leather of Steve’s jacket, and Steve forgot all about that slight pain as Bucky’s tongue slid along his bottom lip, a question, a searching, and when Steve parted his lips and tangled his tongue with Bucky’s it felt like something broken--something that had shattered right alongside Bucky in that ravine he thought he’d lost him to--was being pulled together, bound together like a wound healing too fast, and it felt so good it hurt. Bucky tasted of oranges and everything forbidden. 

 

Steve pulled away at that sudden pain, not too far, but far enough for Bucky to open his eyes and look at him. “What are we doing, Bucky?” he murmured, eyes skipping between Bucky’s, as if he could find the answer in his eyes, but all he saw was a sort of heat burning deep behind Bucky’s eyes, the kind of heat that sent the best kind of shiver down Steve’s spine. 

 

“Far as I can tell,” Bucky said back, managing to make the breathy words into a drawl somehow, “we’re necking.” He leaned back in, brushing his lips across Steve’s  _ just so _ and Steve let out a breath. He’d seen Bucky kiss plenty of girls in their time, but he’d never imagined how good it could feel. Even kissing Peggy Carter--which was a grand experience in and of itself and a memory Steve held close to his heart--barely compared. This was so utterly  _ different _ and  _ whole _ that Steve could hardly even remember what it felt like to kiss anyone else. 

 

“Wait, Bucky,” Steve said pulling back. It was too much. Nothing had the  _ right _ to feel so good, did it? Surely something had to be wrong. 

 

Bucky’s eyes flicked up to his and an unreadable emotion passed through them, gone too fast, and he pulled back, letting go of Steve’s jacket. Steve felt suddenly cold without Bucky so close to him, and all he knew is that he didn’t want Bucky to leave, and was reaching out before he could stop himself. Bucky didn’t quite flinch when Steve’s hand fell on his shoulder and-- _ oh god he thought it was rejection, but Steve couldn’t deny Bucky anything, not a damn thing because--because--  _ ”Do you want this?” he asked, and it came out more choked than he meant it to because he didn’t know what he’d do if Bucky said no. 

 

Bucky’s gaze, firmly positioned somewhere to Steve’s left, flickered in surprise, grey meeting blue in a clash of lust and something else, something that they may have always had, and Bucky was around the counter before Steve could even put a name to that emotion, and he had Steve’s face in his hands, metal and flesh thumbs stroking hot paths along the tops of his cheekbones. “God, yes, Steve. I’ve spent the last six days wondering if I’ve always--” he broke off, and Steve wasn’t sure what he would’ve said, and didn’t get too much time to think about it because Bucky was kissing him again, and this time it was desperate, and Bucky was telling him something important in a wordless language, trying to convey it with every touch, every brush of his fingers against Steve’s face and the stroke of his tongue against Steve’s. 

 

Steve found his hands sliding up Bucky’s back, along planes of muscle he could feel through the thin shirt he’d loaned Bucky, and Bucky was shaking ever-so-slightly, and Steve ran his hands along Bucky’s spine again and again until it stopped, then found his hands at Bucky’s hips, tracing the delicate press of bone against muscle and skin. Somehow, they were gripping at each other, pulling the other closer, closer, until there was no space between them and then even tighter as if it was possible to meld two people into one. 

 

He didn’t know how long they stayed like that, but it was Bucky this time that broke free, panting hard as if he’d been running, and they stayed forehead to forehead for a long moment, neither of them daring to move or break whatever spell they were in, and then Bucky drew back just a bit farther and Steve opened his eyes to see Bucky watching him intently. He wondered if he was dreaming again. “Does that answer your question?” Bucky asked, hands still resting on Steve’s face. 

 

“Not really,” he breathed back, and Bucky smiled slightly, looking  _ almost _ like he had before the war, and for a moment, Steve could almost imagine they were in their apartment and this was just another night back from dancing. 

 

“For being so smart, Stevie, sometimes I wonder how thick your skull is,” Bucky said, smoothing his fingers across Steve’s face again.

 

Steve let out an annoyed breath, but he didn’t pull away. “It’s pretty thick, Buck,” he said, and Bucky laughed. “It’d have to be for all those stupid fights I got into.” Steve felt like he was on the top of the world. His eyes grew somber after a moment, though, and he reached down with one hand, threading their fingers together, and that simple contact made something in Steve’s heart jump like he was having problems with it again. 

 

“I can’t hurt you, Steve,” he said simply. “I can’t take that chance. I’ve spent my entire life trying to protect you, and I can’t take the chance that I’d accidentally hurt you. Not again.” he traced the bruise on Steve’s face that hadn’t quite had time to heal yet. Steve didn’t allow himself to flinch, though the metal of Bucky’s forefinger was a little too hard against his cheek. 

 

“Bucky…” Steve said, reaching up and taking Bucky’s other hand in his. He needed to think quickly, or else Bucky might leave again, disappear like a ghost and leave Steve wondering if this had even happened at all. “Bruises heal, I’m alright.”

 

Bucky looked up at him, almost helpless. “I can’t control it, Steve. I can’t control my mind sometimes and--” he broke off, shook his head, fingers tightening around Steve’s. “And it scares me,” he continued, the admission soft, almost nonexistent in the space between them, and Steve knew how much it took for someone like Bucky who’d never asked for anything from anyone to admit something like that. 

 

“You were brainwashed for almost seven centuries, Bucky. Forced to believe that you were something you weren’t--”

 

“That doesn’t matter, none of it matters if I can’t control my own mind, Steve. If I stay here with you--God help me, you don’t understand how much I want to--I’m always going to be afraid of waking up with your cold body underneath my hands,” Bucky said and Steve had only seen Bucky cry a few times in his life, but if he had to categorize the sudden brightness of Bucky’s eyes, he’d have to put them under tears. 

 

“You don’t understand, Bucky,” Steve said, the words rushing out of him. “You never understood how it was.” Bucky’s eyes stilled from their run-through of Steve’s body; eyes-lips-neck-chest-lips-eyes. Steve took a deep breath. It was time for them to start talking about things, because whenever they hadn’t, they’d always ended up losing each other, and maybe, just maybe if Steve talked about the things they never talked about he’d be able to keep Bucky here, by his side, where he belonged. “When you left for war it was like you took a piece of me with you. I’d wake up without you there sometimes and wonder why I felt like I couldn’t keep going. I’d start talking to you when I was in the kitchen, like you were in the next room reading and stop halfway through because I’d only just remembered that you weren’t there. I tried to make it better by going out more, and hell, I even saved up enough money to finally go to some art classes, but it wasn’t the same.

 

“And then I was finally accepted, and I thought it was a goddamn miracle, because I wouldn’t have to worry about you anymore, because I wouldn’t be in that place we’d spent years together in, but it didn’t get any better. I kept turning to my side after one of those ridiculous shows and expect to see you there, laughing at my performance. When I found out that you were a prisoner of war, possibly dead, I--” Steve stopped, closing his eyes briefly against the wash of emotions he’d felt back then, as raw as if it had happened yesterday, and Bucky’s hand found its way to his chest, resting over his heart as if he knew that’s exactly where Steve hurt and could alleviate the pain. He couldn’t explain it in words, what he had felt, so he just shook his head, and Bucky let go of his hand so he could draw him in for a hug. 

 

“I know, Steve,” he murmured over and over again into Steve’s shoulder, and Steve was fighting back tears. 

 

“I can’t lose you again, Bucky,” he said, so desperately that it sounded almost comedic, and he might have laughed at himself if he wasn’t fighting back tears or if he hadn’t thrown his entire soul into those words. Bucky’s fingers tightened across his back. “Not when I know that you’re alive and that I can help you.”

 

“You won’t Steve,” Bucky mumbled into Steve’s shoulder, and they stayed like that for a long moment, and the song changed to a slower one--a waltz. He drew back finally. “I can’t be here right now,” he continued, running his hand along Steve’s arm almost subconsciously, as if already soothing him. “I have SHIELD and Hydra looking for me, and if they catch me, they’ll catch you too, but I promise that I will be back.”

 

Steve nearly protested, but there was the sort of promise in Bucky’s eyes like the times he’d promised Steve that he’d get him his medicine, even though neither of them had eaten for days and Bucky was working himself down to the bone and could hardly drag himself out of bed every morning, and Steve knew that Bucky would once again move the sun and the earth to get Steve what he needed, what he wanted.  _ I don’t deserve him, _ Steve thought.  _ What did I do to deserve such loyalty? _

 

Bucky smiled at him as he pulled back and moved to the other side of the counter, and it was the sort of smile that had the whole world knowing what a gift he was, and Steve couldn’t help smiling back. 

 

“I’m gonna keep you to that promise, Barnes,” Steve said, nodding as  and Bucky blew a kiss to him, almost jokingly, and Steve blushed because he knew what Bucky’s lips felt like against his and he grinned like an idiot. He hardly felt the emptiness this time as Bucky left through his balcony door. 

 

00800

 

The uneasiness only set in an hour afterwards, when the reality of it hit Steve instead of the lazy glow he felt. He got up and took the record off of his player. It’d stopped playing awhile ago, but he hadn’t bothered. 

 

_ What had he done? _ Steve put the gun away calmly and then allowed himself to pace, because the roiling emotions racing through him fast as lightning were making him twitch. Why had something so wrong--something Steve had been taught from birth almost was blasphemy--felt so  _ right _ ? It had been almost as if he’d been searching for something, missing something and Bucky was that something, and when he’d kissed him, some sort of puzzle piece that Steve’d always thought had just been rough edges that meant nothing at all had suddenly made so much sense. In that moment, it’d seemed so clear, but now that Bucky wasn’t there, the constant too-big-for-life presence that always kept Steve’s wandering thoughts and doubts in check, he’d begun the doubting. 

 

He wasn’t an invert. He  _ wasn’t, _ was he? He’d seen them down the alleys and in the docks when they thought no one was paying attention; the sounds of two men together doing  _ something _ that Steve had never really looked too hard into because he’d just turn his head and blush and keep walking and tell himself that as long as they weren’t hurting anyone else, they weren’t doing anything  _ too _ wrong and he remembered how easily he was able to convince himself of that, like it was fact and not something that Steve was lying to himself about. But that didn’t make him a fairy. It didn’t make him like them. All Steve could think about was Leviticus’ words from the bible playing over and over in his head like a song.  _ Abomination _ he called it. 

 

It hadn’t felt wrong. It hadn’t felt sick or like an abomination. It’d felt like he’d finally caught a glimpse of what he was meant to be. He hadn’t been lost, hadn’t felt that emptiness that had been ever-present ever since Bucky left for war since Bucky’d kissed him. Could something that made him feel better than he ever had in his entire existence by wrong?

 

Steve cursed and then shook his head at himself. He’d never be able to figure it out by himself, that he knew. He’d never gone to any of his fellow Avengers for anything like this before, and he couldn't exactly ask Sam for help because Sam would give him that  _ look _ that Steve was dreading but he didn’t exactly know any of the others well enough to take this particular problem to them. Then it hit him--he’d seen the way Natasha and Clint had always been close, and she’d all but admitted to him that they’d had more than friendship going for them in the past on multiple occasions, but Clint was married and had a family, and surely that was almost the same dilemma Steve was in, wasn’t it?

 

He was over by the window in an instant and had pulled out his cellphone. He fussed over it for a few moments, trying to decide whether or not this was really the best thing to do, but after telling himself firmly,  _ this isn’t going to fix itself, you already know that,  _ he’d pressed the button for Natasha’s speed dial. 

 

“Hi, Natasha, I know I just got a ride from you, but could you possibly come pick me up again? I have a question for you.”

 

After letting him know that she wasn’t happy at all about this, Natasha agreed to pick him up, and before he knew it, Steve was opening the door to yet another one of Natasha’s ridiculous cars and apologizing in advance. 

 

“Shut up and ask me the question so we can get going,” Natasha said. 

 

Steve opened his mouth and frowned, then closed it, and Natasha really looked over at him, eyes noting his kiss-bitten lips and flushed cheeks,  her eyebrow raised. “You and Sharon?” she asked, and Steve nearly laughed out loud. He settled for an undignified snort and shook his head. He had absolutely no idea where to start. 

 

Natasha pulled the car out from the curb. “You have until we get to the park to talk and then I’m throwing you out to walk home.” Steve wasn’t completely sure if she was being serious, and the admission poured out of him. 

 

“Bucky came by my apartment tonight and he kissed me and I kissed him back and I don’t know what I should be feeling right now, Natashahelpme.”

 

“Aw hell,” she said after blinking at him for all of two seconds. “You just made me lose my bet, Rogers.” No,  _ what’s wrong with you?  _ Or,  _ that isn’t okay, Rogers. _

 

Steve blinked. “What?”

 

“Clint and I had a bet about whether or not you guys were already in love or if it was new, and I, being the hopeless romantic I actually am on the inside underneath my emotionless exterior, decided to choose the former,” Natasha said, and she was smiling like there was absolutely nothing wrong. “And now I owe Clint fifty bucks--”

 

“But Natasha, I  _ kissed _ Bucky,” Steve said, and still, Natasha seemed utterly unimpressed. 

 

“Haven’t been the first one to do that, Steve. He has a nice mouth, you do have to admit.”

 

Steve shook his head, but he didn’t comment; didn’t think that he could handle any more gound-breaking news like that. “But what do I do, Natasha? I shouldn’t be feeling this for him, it’s wrong.”

 

Natasha pulled the car over; they were at the park. She turned the engine off and looked over at Steve, eyes dead serious. “Did it feel wrong?” Steve didn’t answer away, looking out at the park, at all the people and felt that distinct impression of not belonging once again. He was trapped in an age where people boiled their dinners and the closest thing to technology was the newly-invented television. He sighed and turned back to Natasha. 

 

“It felt like I’d been missing something my entire life without knowing it and Bucky was that thing,” Steve said, because he didn’t have to lie to Natasha. She nodded and turned to look out at the park as well. 

 

“Well, there you have it.”

 

“Have what?”

 

“The answer to the question you didn’t ask me. You love him,” she said as if it was the simplest thing in the world. 

 

“But Natasha, that’s wrong,” Steve said, feeling his heart beating too fast in his chest again. 

 

“What part of it is? You just told me that it felt right.” She shrugged her shoulders and started the car again.

 

“But the bible says--”

 

“I know you still think like you’re in the ‘40s, but we live in a world where gay and lesbian marriage is legal today and no one would be able to tell you that it’s wrong, and the bible is outdated.”

 

“How--” Steve broke himself off, and licked his lips--they still tasted like orange and Bucky--before continuing. “How do I know that it’s real, though? What if there’s something wrong with me? Maybe seeing Bucky falling off of that train did something to me.” Natasha was shaking her head, a slight smile on her lips. “How did you know?” he asked softly, and Natasha looked over at him, the smile gone. 

 

“Know what?”

 

“That you loved Clint?” 

 

Her lips compressed ever-so-slightly. “I don’t know, I suppose you could say that being together almost always since children formed a certain bond between us, but it wasn’t until later that it developed into the kind of love that soulmates share.” She sounded almost sad, and Steve’s heart went out to her. He didn’t know what had happened that had caused them to diverge at that particular point, but he wouldn’t pry.

 

Instead he asked, “How do you know what a soulmate is?” because that was the only word he could think of at the moment. 

 

Now, Natasha was smiling again, and she pulled out of the parking lot. “It’s like a best friend, but more. It’s the one person in the world who knows you better than anyone else. That person who makes you a better person. No, actually they don’t make you a better person. You do that yourself because they inspire you. A soulmate is someone you carry with you forever. It’s one person who knew you, accepted you and believed in you before anyone else did or when no one else would. And no matter what happens, you’ll always love them and nothing could ever change that.” She looked over at him as she turned back onto his street. “Think those wise words of wisdom over for a bit before you make any decisions.”

 

“I thought you said you were going to make me walk home,” Steve said, feeling his lips quirk up just a bit as he opened the door. It was almost as if a weight had been lifted off of his chest, just hearing those words, just telling Natasha of what had been weighing on him for what seemed like a long time now.

 

“Well that’s when I thought you were going to ask a stupid question like, ‘Why are leather jackets in right now?’”

 

“Why are they?” Steve asked, moving out of the way of Natasha’s hand as she halfheartedly slapped at him. 

 

“Ask Bucky the next time he shows up to make out with you,” she said, and Steve let out a laugh and leaned back into the car. 

 

“Really though, thank you, Romanov.”

 

“Well, we can’t have you making those sad puppydog eyes at everyone until you figure it out, now can we. Goodnight, Rogers.”

 

“‘Night, Romanov.” He shut the car door and walked back to his apartment complex’s steps, and considered the possibility of seeing Bucky again. His Bucky, in every sense of the phrase, and Steve realized that his heart felt lighter than it had in years. 

 

00800

 

“What was that about?” Clint asked. Natasha smiled as she turned a corner and someone honked at her. 

 

“Steve was freaking out.”

 

“Over what?”

 

“I owe you fifty.”

 

There was a pause on the other side of the line, and Clint laughed at the end of it when he got it. “I knew it. Sam told me he freaked out when he tried to broach the subject with him.”

 

Natasha let out a sigh she hoped Clint could translate into annoyance. “And you didn’t think to tell me that?”

 

“What, we’d already made the bet, Nat. I didn’t want to burst your bubble.”

 

“You’re a dick.”

 

Clint laughed again, and Natasha screeched to a halt in front of her apartment. “So I don’t get any details?” he asked as Natasha struggled with her keys for a few minutes. 

 

“Nope, none.”

 

“Just tell me one thing,” Clint said and Natasha could hear a child laughing in the background. She ignored the pang that went through her at the noise. They’d  _ agreed _ it’d be better if they weren’t together. “You didn’t quote Dawson’s Creek to him, did you?” Natasha shook her head and cursed Clint’s ability to understand her so well under her breath. “What was that?”

 

“Of course not, you idiot. What do you think I am, twelve?”

 

“Oh, Nat, you’re such a romantic,” Clint said, and Natasha slammed the door, because she knew that Clint somehow knew she was blushing. 

  
00800 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That speech that Natasha gave is a complete steal from Dawson’s creek. All credit goes to someone other than me.

**Author's Note:**

> So, please let me know what you think! I hope to hear from you!


End file.
